Delta Groove Music has recently released its fifth studio album by The Mannish Boys. Shortly after Randy Chortkoff founded the label in 2004, he pulled together a group of musicians for the purpose of reviving some of the lesser-known blues hits of the past. Although the main band members have shifted some since their last album (Jimi Botts has replaced Richared Ines on drums and Willie J. Campbell has replaced Tom Leavy and Ronnie James Weber on electric and upright bass), the core group has remained the same. Long-time members Finis Tasby (vocals), Kirk Fletcher (guitar), Frank Goldwasser (guitar/vocals), and Chortkoff himself (lead/harmonica) are joined once again by vocalist Bobby Jones, pianist Fred Kaplan, and wind player David “Woody” Woodford along with approximately a dozen guest artists.
Perhaps because of its huge pool of guest artists, the band covers a range of sounds and genres over the course of this sixteen-track release. Although they offer up plenty of lowdown blues numbers with a California twist, they mix in some rock ’n’ roll and big band style numbers as well. For instance, the album opens with “Too Tired”–a number that combines Chuck Berry style riffs by guitarist Nick Curran with a big band sound multi-tracked by David “Woody” Woodruff and Lee Thornburg. Another example is a medley of Bo Diddley’s “Mona” and Johnny Otis’ “Willie and the Hand Jive.” The group does a great job of capturing the Bo Diddley beat throughout both tunes, albeit at a faster clip and with a more elaborate guitar line than Diddley’s version.
Other highlights on the album include “Educated Ways,” which stands out for its interesting mix of blues piano and vocals over a slide guitar line by Frank Goldwasser and a bari sax rhythm line by Woodford. The timbre combination alone is enough to make this song worth a second listen. “Half Ain’t Been Told” features a duet by Jones and pianist Rob Rio. Rio’s performance is fairly faithful to the Otis Spann version, although Jones signing style is harsher than Spann’s mellow laidback delivery, giving the song more of an edge.
“Bullet” is a blues instrumental featuring solos by Kirk Fletcher, Nick Curran, Fred Kaplan, and Jimi Bott. Although one can’t find fault with Fletcher’s performance, Curran’s livelier style and quick rock ’n’ roll riffs steal the show. Curran’s past performances have run the gamut from rockabilly with Ronnie Dawson, punk with Deguello, and rock ‘n’ roll with his own band, The Lowlifes.
For harmonica lovers, there are a number of fine solos, including performances by Chortkoff, Rod Piazza, Lynwood Slim, Mitch Kashmar, and “Big” Pete van der Pluijm. Van der Pluijm is currently big on the Dutch blues circuit and is sometimes hailed as one of the Netherland’s best kept secrets. In addition to the harmonica, he’s perfectly capable of belting out Lester Butler’s “Way Down South.”
All in all, the Mannish Boys have stuck true to their mission of performing “some of the greatest music from the blues canon without lapsing into clichés and dead-horse beating.” I suspect for diehard blues fans some of the numbers will be a bit too close to earlier versions to warrant repeated listening. For more casual blues listeners, however, Shake for Me promises to make a great addition to your collection.
The Holmes Brothers‘ music is hard to classify. Put this new CD into your iTunes library and it gets classified as blues. Guitarist/vocalist Wendell Holmes says they play “American roots music” in a promotional video made by Alligator Records. Even more than their other albums, this latest from the New York City-based band defies categorization. There are soul tunes, blues tunes, gospel tunes and some country-western flavors; there are cover tunes and originals. What results is a very enjoyable musical gumbo, with less edge but more soul than some of the band’s previous albums.
The Holmes Brothers―brothers Wendell and Sherman Holmes plus drummer Popsy Dixon―have been playing together since the 1970s, but didn’t make their first album (In the Spirit on Rounder) until 1989. Since then, they’ve put out a steady stream of recordings and toured tirelessly. All of that ground to a halt in 2008, when Wendell Holmes was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
Wendell Holmes’ successful battle with cancer is central to this album. The time off the road led to more original tunes than any previous Holmes Brothers album. Plus, the new songs resonate with reflections and lessons drawn from the cancer experience. In all, Wendell Holmes wrote or co-wrote 7 of the album’s 14 tunes, and Sherman Holmes wrote two others. The band also covers a tune by the Beatles, “I’ll Be Back.” And they present the recording debut of “Something Is Missing” by John Ellison, who wrote the soul classic “Some Kind of Wonderful.”
The following is a behind the scenes look at the Holmes Brothers regarding the making of Feed My Soul.
This album has a quiet intensity to it. It sounds comfortable, relaxed and natural. Singer/songwriter Joan Osborne did a fine job producing it and singing backup on some cuts. The recording, at Long View Farm Studios in Massachusetts, was well-done, adding to the laid-back feeling. For example, Wendell Holmes’ guitar solos are generally panned right, not placed in your face in the center, and are somewhat back in the mix. In other words, the solos are in balance with the band and sounding like if the whole band is together in front of you, playing together. It sounds and feels like a Holmes Brothers live performance, which is not to be missed.
The vocal harmonies are also a highlight of the album, as on all Holmes Brothers recordings. These guys are older and maybe a little less edgy, but they still make beautiful harmonies and still have strong pipes.
The whole album flows very nicely, but there are stand-out cuts: “Fair Weather Friend”; “Living Well Is the Best Revenge”; a cover of “Pledging My Love” by Don Robey and Ferdinand Washington; the cover of the Beatles’ “I’ll Be Back”; and the title track. Here’s hoping the Holmes Brothers remain healthy and vital and turn out some more recordings!
Best known for his iconic 1966 soul single “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Sledge’s new blues album was “designed to mimic the soulful, laid-back vibe of Norala Studios in Alabama, where he cut most of his early sides.”
A self-taught guitarist, vocalist and songwritter from East St. Louis, Young offers up his own brand of electric blues, heavily influenced by B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix.
Slide guitar master and winner of the 2009 Living Blues Awards, Elmore James Jr.’s new release is described as “traditional with a modern touch” and features Jake Dawson on guitar with Ed Williams on sax.
Recorded at a blues festival in Santa Fe, this new release by the New Orleans’ blues elder offers up live versions of many songs featured on his previous albums. As noted in the press release, his guitar playing and singing are “unmistakably rooted in his native Mississippi Delta soil.”
The legendary guitarist/vocalist, credited with influencing both Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy, proves he is still going strong at 70 with yet another solid, hard-driving electric blues album.
Quintus McCormick has been a fixture in the Chicago blues-club scene since the mid-90s, but this is his first studio album as a leader. In a nice marketing touch, and for the edification of some listeners, Delmark includes a definition of a Jodie on the cover: “n. 1. back door lover.”
The album’s style straddles the line between modern urban blues and southern soul, the common theme being wronged lovers and “troubled business.” McCormick is a first-rate guitarist, and his band—which includes horns, harmonica and backing vocals—stands firmly behind him. The result is a polished and smooth sound, with musicianship edging out soul in some parts.
McCormick can also sing, and his vocal range works perfectly with the way he’s arranged the music. The mix is punchy but uncluttered, so the album really pops out of the speakers. The operative mode is “modern,” which means Hey Jodie! sounds closer to Alligator blues records from the ‘90s than Chess blues records from the ‘60s. Delmark is a veteran Chicago label, so it’s fair to say this album represents a modern example of their catalog, as opposed to what they were selling in the early 1970s. This is noted so a listener is forewarned against “nostalgia-blues.”
Fourteen of fifteen tunes on the album are McCormick originals, and he proves an able songwriter. The sequence offers a nice mix of tempo and topic, as well as parts for each musician to shine. The band sounds like they’ve been working together, live, for a long time, with a very tight beat and nice licks and hooks coming at opportune times, no one stepping on anyone else. There’s a nice contrast between songs like the title track and the pure blues number “What Goes Around Comes Around.” Several tunes are of the shuffle-blues variety, and others are up-tempo soul.
The band’s Myspace site offers streams of several songs from the album, so an interested listener can pick their preferences. My favorites are “Fifty/Fifty,” “Get That Money,” “Plano Texas Blues,” and the band’s enthusiastic send-up of “Let The Good Times Roll,” which closes the album. To my ears, the weakest tune is the title track, because it’s delivered too “shiny” and not soulful enough for the song and the lyrics. But it’s certainly not a terrible song—there are no duds on this album.
Here’s hoping Quintus McCormick keeps this fine band together and keeps putting out albums as good as Hey Jodie!.
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…” — Thomas Jefferson (1809). Based on this premise, the folks at Document have compiled a great set “based on an idea inspired by Bernard Madoff,” among others, but related through the “words of sorrow, humour and wisdom of those that have been victims — who have experienced and suffered hardship as the result of financial mischief.” Tracks include “Money Craving Folks” by Blind Alfred Reed, “Million Dollar Blues” by Memphis Minnie, and Russell Means’ “Ain’t No Prison for The Corporation.” Sing it, Brother!
For the first 65 years of his life, Mance Lipscomb spent his weekdays sharecropping or mowing roadsides in rural Texas, near Houston. On the weekends, he would entertain black and white audiences (whites on Friday and Sunday evenings, blacks on Saturday nights) with his guitar and voice. He called himself a “songster,” and could play anything from country blues to waltzes, two-steps and polkas. He never made recordings and was unknown beyond his corner of the wide expanse of Texas.
Then in 1960, a high school teacher named Chris Strachwitz traveled to Houston with a tape recorder and microphone looking to record Lightnin’ Hopkins, but Hopkins had left town to perform in California. So Strachwitz headed out into the country around Houston looking for “any good guitar pickers in these parts,” he wrote in the liner notes to this CD. He soon found Mance Lipscomb. They recorded 23 songs that first evening, and both a recording career and record label were started. Mance Lipscomb, 65-year-old country songster, was the first artist on Arhoolie Records, and that session led to the label’s first LP (#1001), Texas Sharecropper and Songster.
Over the last 15 years of his life, Lipscomb performed throughout the U.S. and recorded many times for Arhoolie. This CD collects what the booklet describes as “the best of what Chris (Strachwitz) was able to capture on tape during his fifteen-year friendship with this generous, charming and talented man.”
The selections range from straight country blues to folk-tinged tales of adventure, misdeeds and love. There are two electric-blues numbers, not the high points on the disc. The rest of the 22-song anthology is just Mance Lipscomb, his acoustic guitar and his voice. And that’s plenty.
Sound quality varies from “good field recording” to “passable live recording.” Most of the recordings are monophonic and none of this is what could be termed audiophile quality. But, the songs and the singer stand up well without great sound. The songs hold the listener’s attention because they are compelling and well-played. Lipscomb’s guitar playing, self-taught, is at times astounding and always tasteful.
Appalachian Blues continues Smithsonian’s Classic series, a set of compilations designed to feature and attract attention to the Institute’s collections. As a region, the Appalachians include thirteen states (seven of which are represented here) and have been home to a variety of blues styles including vaudeville blues, piano blues, boogie, string-band dance blues, and ragtime blues, among others.
Roughly half of the CD’s 21 tracks consist of live recordings made of Appalachian blues performances at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife between 1971 and 1997, the bulk of which were recorded at the 1976 and 1977 festivals. The other half is comprised of reissues from earlier Folkways albums, the majority of which were recorded during the five-year period between 1957 and 1962, although some date back as early as 1944 and as late as 1992.
Most of the tracks feature solo performances, generally guitar instrumentals or vocals with guitar accompaniment. There are, however, two tracks performed on harmonica, a guitar duet, and two string-band selections, as well as a couple of guitar and harmonica trios performed by Sticks McGhee, Sonny Terry, and J.C. Burris. Other featured performers are Doc Watson, Brownie McGhee, Josh White, Baby Tate, and Etta Baker.
As is the case with most Folkways recordings, the CD comes with extensive, scholarly liner notes. In addition to an introduction by Jeff Place that briefly discusses the role of Moe Asch and Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife in documenting Appalachian blues music, the booklet includes a general history of Appalachian blues by Barry Lee Pearson and basic information on each of the songs and performers by Place and Pearson. The general history is particularly interesting and includes information regarding the defining stylistic characteristics of Appalachian blues, the socio-historical context, and the role of recording companies and commercial records in disseminating the music throughout the Appalachian region. Also touched upon are issues of cultural borrowing and integration between white and black performers.
My only complaint about the selection of the music for the CD is that there isn’t more of it. Since the current compilation is limited to a single CD, it presents more of a sampling of styles and performers than an exhaustive regional survey. Given the widely recognized complexity and variety of Appalachian blues music, this particular genre may have warranted a double-CD set, or perhaps a second volume. This issue aside, Appalachian Blues provides an excellent introduction to the music and its history and is a worthy addition to any library or personal collection.
Formats: CD; also released on DVD (DVD 1803) with commentary and an extra track
Release Date: November 2, 2009
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Tail Dragger (a.k.a. James Yancey Jones) is one of the last links to the Delta-Chicago blues of Howlin’ Wolf (Chester Burnett), Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), Little Walter (Walter Jacobs) and Sunny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller). Born in 1940 in Altheimer, Arkansas, Tail Dragger was part of Wolf’s crowd later in the legendary bluesman’s life. After Wolf died, his guitarist, the brilliant and eclectic Hubert Sumlin, worked extensively with Tail Dragger.
The rough lifestyle of the Chicago blues club world—plus the fact that he’s frankly not an A-team bluesman in the league of Wolf, Muddy and Walter—have probably played a part in limiting Tail Dragger’s recorded output. Jones did 17 months prison time for killing fellow bluesman Boston Blackie (Bennie Houston) in 1993, which obviously did not help his career either. Delmark has two live albums in print, and this is the latest offering—recorded at Rooster’s Lounge on Chicago’s West Side on March 21, 2009.
Tail Dragger strongly emulates Howlin’ Wolf in his delivery, tempo and choice of material. His “preachin’ and growlin’” between numbers (words used in Delmark’s release materials) is a bit long-winded, but once the band gets to work there’s a very strong and genuine feel to the music. It’s clear that you’re hearing the last of a type of music. A young aspiring bluesman would not deliver these songs this way. The end result is, this album stands out among the overly-produced “axe wizard” generic stuff that dominates the blues genre today. This bluesman knows what a country mile is and can sing about it credibly.
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Jones is backed by “Rockin’ Johnny” Burgin on lead guitar, Martin Lang on harp, Kevin Shanahan on rhythm guitar, Todd Fackler on bass and Rob Lorenz on drums. Fellow Delmark artist Jimmy Dawkins guests with guitar on Jones’ own tune “Wander.” Burgin glues the music together and provides some solid solos without stealing the show. Lang’s harp playing deserves special mention. He’s constantly throwing out tasty licks and he sits very nicely behind and between Jones and Burgin, on both slow and fast blues. The rhythm section provides a steady and peppy foundation.
The overarching feeling delivered by this album is authenticity. These guys are playing old-style Chicago electric blues in a believable way and Tail Dragger is just old enough to have gathered some mentoring and magic blues-dust from the legends but young enough to still be able to stand and deliver. Howlin’ Wolf he isn’t, but he ain’t too bad either.
This CD is a course in Boogie Woogie Piano 101, much of it recorded in 1939 but parts recorded in 1955, 1960 and 1970. Delmark founder and owner Bob Koester provides neat little biographical sketches of the artists in the brief liner notes. The music speaks for itself; it must since the notes don’t offer any details.
“So who doesn’t like Boogie Woogie?” Koester asks in his notes. It’s hard to think of anyone while listening to this collection. The 1939 recordings of Albert Ammons (stride piano pioneer and father of hard bop sax great Gene Ammons and Methodist Bishop Edsel Ammons), Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson are classic Chicago-style warhorse piano gymnastics. Especially amazing is Lewis’s “Doll House Boogie,” part of which was apparently pounded out on a toy piano! The CD tray card notes these are “famous 1939 Sherman Hotel (Chicago) recordings,” but does not explain the context so one wonders what is “famous” about this venue and these recordings.
Interesting and different are the circa 1939 recordings of “Cripple” Clarence Lofton. Koester describes his style as the “Raggedy-Ass school of woogie,” meaning Lofton “never really hits a wrong note but slaps the keys in a way that you wonder how he does it.” The key to Lofton is how he keeps the beat together while running around the keyboard. It’s a nice contrast to the polished pyrotechnics of Lewis.
Delmark is in the process of reissuing titles from Paul Affeldt’s Euphonic Sounds label, and this CD is part of the series. The recordings of Henry Brown and Speckled Red come from Affeldt’s master tapes. The performances are less polished than the 1939 recordings by the old masters, but there’s much to like about them. Koester’s notes claim Speckled Red’s “Dirty Dozens” is “the great-grandfather of rap.” It is a humorously foul-minded ditty, and apparently Red would extend the playing time and dirtiness of the lyrics (after asking the ladies to leave the room) when he played the song live.
A note about the sound quality: it’s not, by and large, high-fidelity. The 1939 performances are heard through the clouded lens of scratchy and sometimes distorted disc recordings. The field recordings made by Affeldt in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s are of varying quality, sometimes quite good. But none of this prevents the fine music from blasting through. Listen carefully to what these men are doing to a piano with two hands and 10 fingers and the amazement will cancel out any complaints about the audio fidelity. Kudos from this reviewer to Affeldt and then Koester, for avoiding heavy use of EQ or noise-reduction gadgets. What you hear on this CD is more or less what was heard during playbacks at the recording sessions.
Overall, Boogie Woogie Kings is a great introduction to blues-based stride piano. The music is vaguely suggestive of a saloon, but have no doubt that these guys are master musicians, playing hard and fast. If you’re interested in further exploration, hunt down Albert Ammons’ 1940’s Mercury sides, Pete Johnson’s work with Joe Turner, Meade Lux Lewis’s sides reissued by Riverside in the 1950s, and further Delmark CDs in this Euphonic Sounds series.
Reviewed by Tom Fine
Editor’s note: Jimmy Blythe’s Messin’ Around Blues, a previous release in the Euphonic Sounds series, was reviewed in Black Grooves in 2007.
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Folk-blues guitarist Eric Bibb has delivered a winner here. In a laid-back style that belies the obviously intense craftsmanship required to write and play these tunes, Bibb transports the listener back and forth between the Mississippi Delta of the early days of recorded blues and the modern world. The style is a crossroads of sorts—the country blues meets an educated and urbane troubadour drawing inspiration from a gumbo of books, New Age philosophy, and good old-fashioned blues legends and motifs. If this all sounds too “of the academy,” the result is not, it’s good solid musical fun played superbly. Nothing stiff or posed about it; Bibb plays with passion and release and his ensemble work on 8 of the 14 tunes with harmonica ace Grant Dermody demonstrates confident mastery of the material. Tasty licks, meaningful but not overwrought lyrics and excellent production makes for an ear treat.
The title track was inspired by an event that took place in London. Bibb was on tour and, after a show, a friend gave him a National steel guitar that had been owned by Delta bluesman Booker White. Bibb was inspired to write a half-spoken/half-sung tribute to White and the guitar, which he recorded right there in England. The rest of the album was recorded by Michael Bishop in a restored antique general store in Burton, Ohio, in November 2008. Following is the official promotional video (courtesy of Telarc):
Bibb covers the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger” and Blind Willie Johnson’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” in both cases bringing something new and original to the music. Dermody’s harmonica work on both adds power and reinforces Bibb’s guitar work, and Bibb uses a baritone guitar to great effect on “Wayfaring Stranger.”
The rest of the tunes are Bibb originals. He wrote extensive notes, explaining his inspirations and intentions. One might enjoy the album more by listening to it once without the booklet, then refer to Bibb’s notes the second time through. Suffice to say, Bibb is a man who draws inspiration from a variety of sources and schools of thought.
Although every tune on the album was at least good (no clunkers), there were several stand-outs. “Flood Water,” loosely about the Mississippi flood of 1926-27, sounds timeless. It could have been recorded in the early 1930’s or it could be about the recent Katrina disaster. “One Soul to Save” is probably the most intense song on the album, but it’s not overdone or too heavy. “One Good Woman” is a sweet tribute to all the good women out there, and Bibb’s use of a 12-string guitar adds interesting textures and harmonies. And the two covers are not to be missed. The title track is clever where it could be lame, but it’s not among the best on the disc. The same can be said about “Tell Riley,” which is a little corny in concept and lyrics but this is mitigated to a large extent by Bibb’s excellent baritone guitar work and Dermody’s harmonica.
Finally, kudos to engineer and co-producer (with Bibb) Bishop. The dynamic, natural, uncluttered sound on this album is the antithesis of too many modern blues albums. There will be no listener fatigue from this album, only a desire to hear more. Listening on a good system, with the lights dim and a blues vibe in the room, you’ll swear Bibb and Dermody are right there.
This month we’re cleaning house and taking a look at some worthy albums from 2009 that we didn’t have a chance to feature in earlier issues. In addition to three full length reviews—Rev. Timothy Wright’s The Godfather of Gospel, Wu-Tang Chamber Music, and Will Downing’s Classique—we’ve picked over 40 jazz, blues, hip hop, soul, rock, funk and world music albums that we think deserve more attention. Featured artists include Ray Charles, Calvin Richardson, K’Naan, Willie Isz, Tanya Morgan, T-K.A.S.H., Mos Def, Dead Prez, Fashawn, Fela, Alex Cuba, Ricardo Lemvo, Rokia Traore, Mulatu Astatke, Jahdan Blakkamore, Little Walter, Koko Taylor, Shemekia Copeland, Cyril Neville, Otis Taylor, Red Halloway, Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings, and more.
There are some other great albums released in late 2009 that we still hope to cover in the coming months, so stay tuned.
The king of Chicago blues harpists is celebrated in this five CD box set, featuring all of Little Walter’s solo studio recordings for Chess. Also included are previously unreleased and alternate takes for “Goin’ Down Slow,” “Mean Old Frisco,” and many other classics. Extensive liner notes are by Tony Glover, Scott Dirks and Ward Gaines- the authors of Blues With a Feeling: The Little Walter Story. This is a must for all blues harmonica fans, and since Hip-O’s limited editions never stay in print for long, don’t delay.
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Title: What It Takes: The Chess Years (expanded edition)
Artist: Koko Taylor
Label: Hip-O Select
Format: CD
Release date: November 10, 2009
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The world lost the Queen of Chicago Blues earlier this year, and Hip-O Select has paid tribute by remastering this great 1977 compilation featuring Koko Taylor’s early Chess sides, produced by Willie Dixon. This is as good and raw as it gets if you’re a fan of female blues belters, which certainly sums up Taylor, whose style harkens back to Memphis Minnie and Big Mama Thornton. If you’ve only got Taylor’s later Alligator recordings, you owe it to yourself to check out this compilation. From her hit song “Wang Dang Doodle” to “Don’t Mess With the Messer,” the 24 tracks are a fine overview of her early career.
Shemekia Copeland, the Harlem-born Chicago-based daughter of Texas blues guitarist Johnny Copeland, is arguably the current leader among the younger generation of female blues singers, and she hits a home run with her first release on the Telarc label. The title reflects her attempt to stay true to her blues roots while seeking innovative ways to contemporize the genre, which often leads to the merging of old style Chicago blues with R&B, soul, and even a few rock licks. The album features some unusual covers, such as Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow” and Percy Mayfield’s “River’s Invitation,” which are balanced by more traditional fare such as “Sounds Like the Devil” and “Circumstances,” a song composed by her father. Accompanists include Oliver Wood (who also produced the album) and Marc Ribot on guitar, and John Medeski and Kofi Burbridge on keyboards.
Here is a live performance of Shemekia Copeland performing “Never Going Back to Memphis” in Boston on Nov.21, 2008, which is featured on the CD Never Going Back (courtesy of Telarc):
Shirley Johnson, a fixture on the Chicago blues scene, offers up a rollicking good time on her latest album for Delmark. With backing by the Chicago Horns, guitarists Herb Walker and Luke Pytel, and Roosevelt Purifoy on keyboards, Johnson has the ammunition she needs to convincingly deliver hard hitting blues, southern soul standards (“634-5789″ and “Unchain My Heart”), and then funk it up on tracks such as Purifoy’s “My Baby Played Me for a Fool” and Johnson’s own “Blues Attack.” A very enjoyable album that makes you think about reserving a spot at the Grant Park bandshell for the next Chicago Blues Fest.
Chicago’s Eddie C. Campbell, known as “The King of the West Side Funk Blues,” made his Delmark debut this year, his first release in over a decade. One of the originator’s of the West Side sound—along with Jimmy Dawkins, Eddy Clearwater, and Buddy Guy—Campbell is known for his reverb-drenched guitar, powerful vocals, and a unique songwriting style, which is amply demonstrated on original songs such as “Makin’ Popcorn,” “Big World,” and “Voodoo.” He pulls out all the stops on a rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and pays tribute to Magic Sam on covers of “Easy Baby” and “Love Me With a Feeling.” Listening to this CD is the next best thing to sitting in a Chicago blues club on a Saturday night.
Artists: Billy Boy Arnold, John Primer, Billy Branch, Lurrie Bell
Label: Raisin’ Music
Format: CD, MP3
Release date: April 21, 2009
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This two-CD set features four “inheritors of the Chicago Blues tradition” paying tribute to the evolution of the genre from its earliest days through the present. Many of the city’s past blues masters are covered, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Rush, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, Big Maceo, Elmore James, B.B. King, Memphis Slim, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells, Earl Hooker, Magic Sam and John Lee Hooker, among others. The first disc, recorded in analog to create a period feel, covers 1940-1955, while the second disc covers 1955 to the present. A 36 page illustrated booklet rich in historical detail completes the set.
Here is a clip of a performance courtesy of Raisin Music:
This follow-up to 2005’s Diamonds in the Rough features five more contemporary Chicago blues harpists– Reginald Cooper, Russ Green, Harmonica Hinds, Charlie Love and Jeff Taylor, as well as the late Little Arthur Duncan. The back-up band, dubbed the Chicago Bluesmasters, includes Illinois Slim and Rick Kreher on guitar, Mark Brumbach on piano, and E.G. McDaniel and Twist Turner on bass and drums. Selections include classics such as Howlin’ Wolf’s “Ooh Baby, Hold Me” and Johnny Guitar Watson’s “Gangster Of Love,” as well as newer compositions. Severn must be congratulated for their efforts to document and preserve the classic postwar style of blues harp through performances by lesser-known Chicago bearers of the tradition.
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Chicago is not the only home to funkified, soulful blues, as is proven by New Orleans native Cyril Neville. The youngest member of the famous Neville family of musicians and a founding member of the Meters, Cyril’s new solo effort is full of original material drawing upon his work as a human-rights advocate and preservationist, and frequently references the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Guest appearances include brother and fellow Meter Art Neville (organ), Ivan Neville (organ), Ian Neville (guitar), Tab Benoit (guitar), Waylon Thibodeaux (washboard) and Jumpin Johnny Sansone (harmonica). This is one of my favorite blues albums on the list, perhaps because I took a couple of trips to New Orleans last year and am still upset that I was a week too early to catch Cyril’s live performance.
Taylor explores new territory with his acoustic styled “trance blues,” not only musically but thematically, taking on love songs but still throwing in the requisite tragic spin. Guests include Irish blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore, jazz pianist Jason Moran, and Ron Miles on cornet, while daughter Cassie Taylor contributes lead vocals on several songs. The tracks alternate between smoky jazz-based blues, folk blues, and more straight ahead acoustic blues. If you’re into electric Chicago-style blues this album is probably not for you, but if you’re willing to indulge Taylor as he stretches the boundaries of contemporary blues, there is much to satisfy.
No doubt the funkiest holiday CD released this year, In the Christmas Groove is guaranteed to spice up your parties. The compilation features 12 rare soul, funk and blues tracks from the golden era of ‘60s and ‘70s soul music “when the good groove met the jingle bells to devastating effect.” Selections include “Boogaloo Santa Claus” by J. D. McDonald, “Funky Funky Christmas” by Electric Jungle, “Soul Santa” by the Funk Machine, a rocking “Auld Lang Syne” by Seattle’s Black on White Affair, and an upbeat “Black Christmas [in the ghetto]” by the Harlem Children’s Chorus. An extensive booklet with original sleeve artwork and liner notes by James Maycock accompanies the CD (unfortunately not included with my promo copy).
Following up on the success of “Blues, Blues Christmas: 1925-1955″ (Volume 1, DOCD-32-20-9), Document has just released a second volume of Christmas songs “in the blues, jazz, boogie-woogie and gospel spirit.” The budget priced two-CD set includes illustrated liner notes by Jeff Harris and 44 tracks that offer a grab bag of holiday themed entertainment. Selections range from Blind Lemon Jefferson’s ”Christmas Eve Blues,” and Lightnin` Hopkins’ “Merry Christmas” to Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph, Run,” Fats Waller’s “Swingin’ Them Jingle Bells” and the MoonGlows’ “Hey Santa Claus.” There’s also plenty of “gospel spirit,” including “When Was Jesus Born” by the Heavenly Gospel Singers, ”There Was No Room At The Hotel” by the Lucy Smith Jubilee Singers, “Silent Night, Holy Night” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” by Wings Over Jordan.
New Orleans jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins offers a swinging take on holiday classics ranging from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” to “Little Drummer Boy,” along with his own holiday compositions “Crazy Cool Christmas” and “A Saint’s Christmas.” Special guests include Irvin Mayfield on organ, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, and members of the Rebirth Brass Band. Ruffins also adds some respectable vocals to the mix. This gets our vote for best new holiday release of 2009 in the non-gospel category.
Originally released in 1963, this compilation has been called “the greatest rock & roll Christmas album of all time” due, in part, to the legendary “wall-of-sound” added by producer Phil Spector. Featured artists include the Ronettes (“Frosty the Snowman,” “Sleigh Ride,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”), the Crystals (“Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers”), Darlene Love (“White Christmas,” “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home,” “Marshmallow World”), and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans (“The Bells of St. Mary,” “Here Comes Santa Claus”). Many thanks to Sony Legacy for getting this classic back in print.
Title: Ultimate Christmas Collection
Artist: Jackson 5
Format: CD; MP3
Label: Motown
Release Date: October 13, 2009
Many tribute albums, videos and films have already been released this year, but who can get enough Michael Jackson, especially little Michael with the Jackson 5? This compilation includes the group’s 1970 Christmas album along with other fun bonus tracks, such as MJ’s version of “Little Christmas Tree” and some funky new remixes. A wonderful bit of nostalgia for us older folks, and an album you’ll want to share with the kids during the holidays.
If you’re shopping around for the perfect coffee table book, what could be better than a slick tome that’s packaged with 2 LPs chock full of vintage blues? Between 1975-1977 photographer Michael Abramson shot images of crowds and performers at various clubs on Chicago’s South Side, and over 100 have been selected for inclusion in the book, which also includes an essay by Nick Hornby. The accompanying 17 track compiilation features artists such as Little Ed (“It’s a Dream”), Syl Johnson (“Is it Because I’m Black?”), Willie Williams (“Detroit Blues”), Detroit Jr. (“Young Blood”), Bobby Rush (“Bowlegged Woman”), Lucille Span (“Women’s Lib”) and Arlene Brown (“I’m a Steaker Baby”). The tracks have been skillfully remastered, but still retain all of the grit of a South Side Blues club, as illustrated in the official promo:
If you act fast and score one of the first 1000 copies, you’ll also receive a bonus 45 (may only apply to purchases made directly from the Numero site).
John Tefteller has produced another great calendar featuring classic artwork and rare photographs of legendary Blues performers. The 2010 calendar (Vol. 7) is once again accompanied by a not-to-be-missed CD that includes two Henry Townsend songs (newly remastered from the only surviving copy), unreleased songs from Blind Blake and Frank Palmes, plus additional tracks by Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Robert Wilkins, and Skip James. The ideal gift for the blues fan on your list.
Welcome to the October/November issue of Black Grooves. In celebration of our upcoming conference, Reclaiming the Right to Rock: Black Experiences in Rock Music, which will be hosted on the IU-Bloomington campus on November 13-14, 2009, we’re devoting the entire issue to black rock. Featured are two recent films, Electric Purgatory: The Fate of the Black Rocker (dir. by Raymond Gayle) and White Lies, Black Sheep (dir. by James Spooner, best known for his film Afro-punk). We’re also covering new releases by Living Colour, BLK JKS, Ben Harper, and Crown of Thorns (led by Jean Beauvoir). Among the reissues are Ava Cherry’s The Astronette Sessions and the Lafayette Afro Rock Band’s Darkest Light, as well as a previously unreleased album by our favorite funk rock diva Betty Davis. Finally, you won’t want to miss the new free compilation from Boldaslove.us featuring 17 tracks from some of the hottest black rock artists on the scene today.
With a title like White Lies for Dark Times, I have to admit I was expecting this to be an overtly political album, hopefully containing some hard-hitting tell-it-like-it-is commentary on race relations, poverty, class, and the economy.You won’t find any of that here.What you will find is a gritty, passionate, and eminently solid blues-rock album that chooses its battles but never pulls its punches.The “dark times” here aren’t the external forces of politics, but the inner struggles of the heart and soul, both internally and within intimate relationships.
Leaving his usual backing band, the Innocent Criminals, Ben Harper has teamed up with the Austin-based trio Relentless7 for this recording.Together, they create an unabashed rock album, but one that wears it heritage of blues, soul, and funk on its sleeve.The effect is something that would sound at home in a southern roadhouse, a Chicago blues club, or an outdoor rock festival.At times, Harper and Relentless7 seem to be channeling the spirit of Jimi Hendrix (or at least Lenny Kravitz), but they never come off as blindly imitative or derivative.Harder-hitting songs such as “Number with No Name,” “Lay There & Hate Me,” and “Why Must You Always Dress in Black” explode with wailing guitars, churning bass, and thumping drums.The album’s slow acoustic ballads, notably the understated “Skin Thin” and the softly hopeful closing track “Faithfully Remain,” are remarkably tender and delicate, while still grounded in the rock texture.The mid-tempo “Up to You Now” has the roughness of the faster tracks, but the lead guitar and Harper’s soul-laced tenor wail (somehow reminiscent here of Curtis Mayfield) both ring out sharply over the drums and bass like neon lights flashing in the dark. Following is the official video for the single “Shimmer and Shine” from the album:
Most of the songs take a bitter and wearied look at faded relationships and personal despair.In “Up to You Now,” Harper sings “You wrote a list / with all of your demands / and you nailed it to both of my hands.”He expands on the theme of an entrapping, soured relationship in “Lay There & Hate Me”:
You gave me an eight-page letter
Front and back
Written in your favorite colors
Blood and black
Choose your words so careful
As you’d choose your own grave stone
Lay there and hate me
Better than being alone
Harper has a way with lyrics, however, and a sense of black humor that forces its way out even in such dark times.“Why Must You Always Dress in Black” opens with the quip “You may be a cheap date / but my therapy’s expensive as hell,” while “Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart)” finds Harper musing, “I’m not sure what worries me more / the fact that I’m talking to a wall / or that the wall keeps answering me.”
Lyrically, this is pretty bleak stuff, and if the lyrics were the driving force of this album, I don’t know that I could make it through the whole thing more than twice.But as deft and cathartic as the lyrics are, it’s the driving rock and roll energy of the music that carries the work and gives it a sense of exuberance in the face of its dark topical themes.Harper and Relentless7 have put together an album that sounds cohesive and classic from the first listen, without any filler or loss of momentum, and the overall effect is powerful.If these are white lies, don’t bother giving me the truth.
Bear Family Records has done the popular music world a huge service by issuing this five CD box set, Nothing But Good: the King/Federal Labels, 1952-1962, accompanied by a colorfully illustrated 83-page oversized book authored by Bill Dahl. The CDs contain the recordings of the band known variously as the Royals, the Midnighters, and Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, starting with 1953’s “I’m so Blue” and ending with 1962’s “Bring Me Your Love.” The music itself is infectious, reproduced with splendid production values (a Bear Family hallmark), and the package includes alternate takes and previously unreleased tracks.
Significantly, the songs are all ones on which Ballard, not an original Royal, sang lead. In the early going the members shared vocal duties more evenly, but Ballard’s clear, strong voice; faultless phrasing; and songwriting prowess made him the star of the act. As Dahl notes, the Midnighters “were the first Detroit R&B group to transcend their local standing to really make it big on a national basis, and Ballard was their chief source of material.” And as a contemporary of the Midnighters told Dahl, “The Midnighters were the Temptations before the Temptations in Detroit.” [p. 3]
Hank Ballard is probably most often remembered for his role in two incredible pop music phenomena. In 1954 he and the Midnighters recorded a string of records that, despite a near-total lack of mainstream radio airplay, sold in the millions. These were the “Annie” songs: “Work With Me Annie,” “Annie Had a Baby,” “Annie’s Aunt Fannie,” and the thematically linked “Sexy Ways.” Then, in 1958, the Ballard-penned “The Twist” launched a dance craze that lasted a few years (odd for a teen dance craze), transformed how people danced to up-tempo pop music, and inspired dozens of Twist songs by acts as diverse as the Isley Brothers (“Twist and Shout,” “Twistin’ with Linda”), Sam Cooke (“Twistin’ the Night Away”), and Joey Dee and the Starlighters (“The Peppermint Twist”).
Dust-to-Digital has done it again. The company that produced Goodbye Babylon, a wonderful historical CD set of early gospel recordings lovingly tucked into a wooden crate packed with genuine southern cotton, has followed up with another unique gospel offering. Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950 is half picture book, half liner notes in the form of a hardcover book with an accompanying CD affixed inside the back cover.
The bulk of the 96-page book features beautifully reproduced sepia-toned photographs of “immersion baptism” from the collection of Jim Linderman; that is, out-of-doors full body immersion in lakes and rivers, often en masse. Included are some extremely rare, early images of African American baptisms such as the panorama stretching across the back and front covers labeled “Black Billy Sunday, Indianapolis, Aug. 3, 1919, Baptising at Fall Creek” (one of the few images with such a complete identification). A brief essay by Luc Sante provides the context necessary to understand the images, including a general history of baptism, an overview of the featured denominations, and a description of the settings and emotionally charged states of the participants.
Now, on to the music. The 25 “Songs and Sermons” on the accompanying CD are “derived from extremely rare records” from the collections of Steven Lance Ledbetter (Dust-to-Digital’s owner/producer) and legendary record collector Joe Bussard, among others, and ” have been remastered to produce the best possible sound.” Ledbetter also wrote the accompanying liner notes, included at the end of the book. The tracks, of course, all have a baptism/water theme, including various renditions of “Wade in the Water” (a few also appeared on Goodbye Babylon). Selections range from such African American heavyweights as the Rev. J. M. Gates (his singing sermon “Baptize Me” from 1926) to lesser known artists such as Moses Mason (“Go Wash in the Beautiful Stream’) and Rev. E. D. Campbell (“Take Me to the Water”). White southern gospel artists include the Carter Family (“On My Way to Canaan’s Land”), the Carolina Tar Heels (“I’ll Be Washed”), and Ernest Stoneman’s Dixie Mountaineers (“Down to Jordan and Be Saved”).
Together, the photographs and music make a stunning package. As Sante states in his essay, “Whether you have ever actually experienced a baptism or not, whether you are a believer or not, these pictures and the music that accompanies them transmit all the emotional information: the excitement and the serenity, the fellowship and the warmth, the wind and the water.”
For more than 50 years, New Orleans native Allen Toussaint has occupied an exalted position in American pop musical life as a hit-making producer, songwriter, performer, arranger, and studio owner.He’s had great success with R&B stars Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas and Lee Dorsey, gotten funky with The Meters and Dr. John, and crafted horn charts for The Band’s live shows (captured in 1971/2’s Rock Of Ages album), to mention only a small fraction of his work.His song “Southern Nights” was a #1 hit on the country and pop charts in 1977 (via Glen Campbell’s cover version); he’s written a theater play; composed, directed, and performed in off- and on-Broadway productions; co-founded a charity non-profit organization in New Orleans with Aaron Neville; and, along the way, won election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But, until 2005’s Going Places (released on Toussaint’s son’s indy-label, Captivating Recording Technologies) and now 2009’s The Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch), the 71-year-old Toussaint had never recorded a jazz album.And make no mistake.The Bright Mississippi is not a pop or R&B effort, but one firmly grounded in the jazz tradition.While it draws its inspiration from the repertoire of heavyweights such as Beiderbecke, Bechet, Ellington, Monk, Reinhardt, Morton, Armstrong, and George Lewis, the song choices are personal and not overly obvious, in general shying away from the tried-and-true (“Solitude” and “St. James Infirmary” notwithstanding).His sidemen, too, are a quirky bunch of current generation jazz polymaths (Don Byron, Marc Ribot, Nicolas Payton are all in the band; Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman each sit in on one tune), a testament to the esteem and respect Toussaint commands within the jazz community.Toss in the fact that Toussaint himself has always been a pianist of great gifts, with a lovely touch and grace to spare, and The Bright Mississippi would seem to be a can’t-miss affair.So, with all that going for it, why does this disc leave me so unmoved?
Welcome to the May 2009 issue of Black Grooves. This month we’re featuring two more entries in our ongoing look at black rock, including the latest release by the up and coming southern rap-rock band Whole Wheat Bread, and a newly edited and expanded edition of the documentary on the making of Jimi Hendrix’s landmark concept album, Electric Ladyland. Just in time for Mother’s Day is Dorothy Norwood’s Fifty Years – It’s Been Worth It All (with several Mother themed songs); other gospel titles includeOh Happy Day: An All-star Music Celebration featuring duets between sacred and secular artists, and a two-disc Hommage to the Golden Gate Quartet. Under the hip hop category, we’re profiling Aceyalone’s The Lonely Ones, an album guaranteed to appeal to R&B fans, as well as Russell Myrie’s authorized biography of Public Enemy. Also in this issue are reviews of the latest albums by Ruthie Foster, Mavis Staples, Greg Tate’s free jazz collective known as Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, and The Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band, anextremely appealing reinvention of the Beatle’s classic album.
Following up 2007’s The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster, Ruthie Foster once again showcases her roots-based blend of blues, soul, gospel, and folk rock. Similar to fellow blues-rocker Danielia Cotton, Texas-born Foster cut her musical teeth singing gospel in church, learning rock songs, and listening to country radio with her grandfather. Both reflect the fusion of their childhood experiences, though Foster swings to folk influences more than the rock and country that pervade Cotton’s music.
Drawing on those gospel roots, Foster certainly does step up to testify on The Truth; all eleven songs weave a sort of sermon out of hard times, hope, and Foster’s gritty, powerful voice. The song selection covers equal parts covers and original tracks. Foster’s originals slant towards the positive side of life, emphasizing love, perseverance, and gratitude. “Stone Love” is a strong opening track, with a funky electric blues groove and anthemic lyrics such as “You see your worries, they’ll be alright / Just look around you, see that love is winning the fight.” “Joy on the Other Side” has the acoustic sound of Delta blues or old-time string bands, with the celebratory verve of gospel. Foster’s central message comes in the aptly-named “Truth,” in which she proclaims “Truth is right where you are.”
While Foster’s own songwriting voice is powerful, several of her covers stand out as the stronger tracks, allowing Foster’s voice to really shine. Not coincidentally, these are the songs dealing with downward turns of fortune, whether material or spiritual, and Foster brings out the raw catharsis of blues in them. “Nickel and a Nail” sounds like it emerged from a dark, smokey blues club on a summer night, with Foster’s voice taking on a growly and world-weary tone reminiscent of Janis Joplin. “When It Don’t Come Easy” is simultaneously wistful, exhausted, hopeful, and comforting in its message of strength and love in hard times.
In spite of these stronger tracks, the album as a whole is somewhat uneven. The light, reggae-styled “I Really Love You” feels out of place both in style and emotional intensity, even in the stylistically diverse selections on this album. “(You Keep Me) Hangin’ On,” “Love in the Middle,” and “Thanks for the Joy,” while more stylistically consistent with the rest of the album, are also more forgettable. Overall, one has to listen through The Truth According to Ruthie Foster quite a few times before any of the tracks start to stand out from each other. While this kind of slow burn isn’t always a bad thing, Foster’s voice is phenomenal and it’s a shame that the album as a whole doesn’t showcase it to its fullest.
Following is a mini-documentary featuring Ruthie Foster at the Blue Rock studios in Wimberly, Texas:
Welcome to the April 2009 issue of Black Grooves. This month, in our ongoing series on black rock, we’re featuring Living Colour’s new DVD/CD The Paris Concert, recorded in July 2007. We’re also reviewing two wonderful new gospel releases: I Got Two Wings, a book and companion CD about “the two-winged preacher and electric guitar evangelist Elder Utah Smith” by Lynn Abbott, and the new Israel Houghton CD The Power of One. Other reviews include hip hop icon Grandmaster Flash’s first release in twenty years, The Bridge: Concept of a Culture; political rap artist Paris’s recent release Acid Reflex; and the Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, by English lit professor Adam Bradley (which, by the way, references both Grandmaster Flash and Paris). Wrapping up this issue is Heavy D’s latest project, the reggae oriented Vibes; India.Arie’s Testimony Vol. 2; the new compilation Classic Protest Songs from Smithsonian Folkways; and a reissue of the live 1963 Atco recording Apollo Saturday Night. Last but not least, see our plug for 2009 Record Store Day, to be held April 18.
War, social injustice, personal plaints, and calls for action have long fueled musical creation and performance—Liner Notes.
Folkways Records, founded by Moses Asch in 1948, emerged on the heels of the social protests of the 1930s and 1940s. In fact, Asch created something of a haven for left-leaning musicians, both black and white, such as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Josh White, who became staples of the famous folk music label. For this compilation, Jeff Place and Mark Gustafson (Smithsonian Folkways’ staff) selected 22 tracks from the Folkways’ vault, as well as from other labels more recently acquired by Smithsonian Folkways, including Monitor and Paragon (the latter was founded in 1970 to document the music of political movements worldwide). An effort was made to represent a broad spectrum of the struggles for economic and social justice, from anti-war protests to civil rights anthems to songs used by union organizers and the labor movement. Place and Gustafson also sought to demonstrate that protest songs did not originate with the folk music revival, thus a number of pre-1950 tracks were included.
African American artists are well represented on this compilation. The disc opens with the “Freedom Now Chant,” sung by participants during a Civil Rights era mass-meeting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and collected by noted scholar Bernice Johnson Reagon. One of the most famous African American folk singers, Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, is represented by a 1930 recording of “Bourgeois Blues,” inspired by the time (presumably one of many) that he was denied a room in a Washington, D.C. hotel.
Big Bill Broonzy, perhaps equally famous as one of the seminal pre-WWII blues artists, contributes “Black, Brown, and White,” a song so controversial in the U.S. that he ended up recording it in Europe. For those who aren’t familiar with the song, the refrain is “If you was white, you’re alright / if you’re brown, stick around / but if you’re black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back.”
An even more controversial song, “Strange Fruit,” is provided by Brother John Sellers, a blues and gospel singer who moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. His 1961 arrangement with flute, guitar, and drum accompaniment offers an interesting contrast to the classic Billie Holiday version, though I find that the flute distracts from the haunting lyrics.
One of the gems on the set is a previously unreleased 1946 recording by Champion Jack Dupree, “I’m Going To Write the Governor of Georgia,” referencing the racism he continued to confront upon his return to the U.S. after WWII, and implying that he was treated little better than he had been during his two years as a Japanese P.O.W. Obviously the song made little difference, for Dupree fled to Europe in the 1950s and didn’t return until shortly before his death in the early ‘90s.
Classic Protest Songs comes with a well-illustrated, well-annotated 29 p. booklet which includes a bibliography and discography of suggested reading/listening. If you don’t have the original Folkways/Paredon/Monitor recordings, this compilation will make a fine addition to your collection.
“The best album I ever produced that nobody’s ever heard”—David Axelrod.
William Edgar John, better known as Little Willie John due to his short stature, was born in Arkansas in 1937 and spent his formative years in Detroit with his sister, Dr. Mable John, a former member of Ray Charles’ Raelettes and the first female artist signed by Berry Gordy. Something of a prodigy, Willie began touring with Paul Williams & His Orchestra when he was just 16. Two years later he landed a recording contract with King Records in Cincinnati where he produced a long string of hit records including “Fever,” which climbed to #1 on the R&B charts in 1956 and was later covered by Peggy Lee and Elvis Presley. His 1955 recording of “I Need Your Love So Bad” has been cited as one of the first soul songs, along with Ray Charles’ “I Got a Woman,” recorded by Atlantic the previous year.
In 1964, at a time when Willie’s career was beginning to lag, he stabbed a man during a bar brawl and was sent to prison. Two years later, while out on appeal, Capitol Records organized a recording session for him, produced by the legendary team of H.B. Barnum and David Axelrod and backed by their regular session musicians, including bassist Carole Kaye, drummer Earl Palmer, saxophonist Clifford Scott, and guitarist Les Buie (who occasionally worked with James Brown). The result was this previously unreleased “lost album,” which has been sitting in Capitol’s vaults for years due to contractual issues (Willie was still under contract to King at the time of the session).
Nineteen Sixty Six: The David Axelrod & HB BarnumSessions kicks off with three tracks drawn from the first recording session held on the evening of February 19, 1966, two of which feature songs previously recorded by Willie. An updated version of “Country Girl” (a.k.a. “Home at Last”), originally released in 1955 by King, opens the set. Following are two blues songs subjected to Willie’s special soul-infused treatment-”Suffering With The Blues,” which he originally recorded for King in 1956, and “I Had A Dream” (a.k.a. “Just a Dream”).
The session scheduled five days later took a ninety degree turn. Instead of the R&B/ jump blues combo, the horns were replaced with a ten piece string section, and back-up vocalists were added, including Barnum’s sister Billie. The producers’ imprint is all over this jazz and pop-oriented session, which bears a closer resemblance to Barnum’s 1960s productions with Frank Sinatra and Axelrod’s early work with Lou Rawls, not to mention some of Willie’s early ‘60s tracks for King, such as “Loving Care.” The session begins with a great soul cover of Johnny Ace’s 1954 classic “Never Let Me Go.” Following is perhaps the most incongruous track from this session, a truly inspired soulful rendition of Rogers and Hammerstein’s “If I Loved You” from the musical Carousel, which I didn’t immediately recognize, but now have played multiple times for family and friends (as in “see if you recognize this!”). No doubt the producers hoped to piggyback on the success of Nat King Cole Sings My Fair Lady, released by Capitol two years earlier. Other tracks from this session include the ballad “(I Need) Someone” and a bluesy version of “Welcome to the Club,” which was also popularized by Nat King Cole in a jazz arrangement recorded in 1958. Though this string session sounds oddly retro for a 1966 era R&B/soul singer, it is still very enjoyable and showcases a distinctly different side of Willie as a pop-oriented balladeer.
Later that afternoon the strings were sent home and the band gets its groove back with the smoking blues standard “Early in the Morning,” followed by one of the best tracks on the CD, “In The Dark,” which aptly demonstrates Willies vocal range and flexibility. Willie’s only original song on the album, “Crying in the Dark,” returns again to the blues idiom, and features some great solos by the band. The session concludes with “You Are My Sunshine,” which once again shows Willie’s ability to completely transform a standard into a powerful demonstration of gospel-tinged soul. The remaining nine bonus tracks include alternate takes and stereo mixes.
Sadly, Little Willie John’s court appeal was overturned shortly after these recording sessions concluded, and he returned to prison. Two years later he died in the Washington state penitentiary in Walla Walla, just five months after a fatal plane crash claimed the life of soul superstar Otis Redding. Though during his lifetime Willie achieved wide acclaim, he is seldom mentioned in the same breath as his contemporaries—Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and James Brown, among others—who were also instrumental in transforming gospel and rhythm and blues music into soul. However, recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in Willie’s career, leading to several good retrospective CD compilations as well as an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. At least one biography is also in progress, and Kent may have another project in the works. Perhaps Little Willie John will finally take his rightful place as one of the first soul singers.
Artists: Various
Label: JSP
Catalog No.: 77109
Release date: October 2008
British label JSP Records has been steadily culling the annals and crevices of American vernacular musics and creating invaluable box sets of off-the-beaten-path roots music. JSP box sets, which all contain four or five CDs, are compiled from the familiar and the unknown, arranged chronologically, and presented with limited but generally thoughtful and well written liner notes. They have made a name for themselves by refining their product to the essentials, keeping the cost low, and it works- their sets are generally less than $30.
Ain’t Times Hard is an attempt by blues historian Neil Slaven (credited as compiler and annotator) to document a theme of political and social commentary in the blues during the first half of the 20th century. The project is successful by the nature of the form, in that the blues has often commented on hard times brought on by circumstance, and by the specific selection of songs that speak to the particulars of the early 20th century. Ain’t Times Hard limits those circumstances to the social, and by association, the political. Hard times brought on by women, drink, or other such vices are given a pass this time around.
As David Evans, scholar and bluesman, has written: “[Blues] became more introspective, self-absorbed, individualistic, serious and worldly at the very time that the majority of Whites were viewing all Blacks as an undifferentiated social caste with stereotyped mental behavioral traits that cast them as ignorant, humorous, and carefree.”(1) Ain’t Times Hard takes this notion one step further by exploring not only the general internal strife of black Americans, but their relationships and commentary on historically located events, situations, and injustices from 1928 to 1954.
The exciting and significant difference between most JSP box sets, and Ain’t Times Hard is no exception, is that the recordings selected are not the standard of any genre, but rather are selected to attempt a broader picture of the time, location, or topic set forth. What we have then in this box set is, like a blues song, variations on a repeated theme, “Political and Social Comment in the Blues.”
The first disc addresses both general and specific hard times brought on by the Great Depression, such as Leroy Carr’s “Depression Blues” or, as Barbeque Bob calls it in “Bad Time Blues,” “the panic crash.” Lyrics recount hard times in familiar terms of joblessness, hunger, and depression, as well as in unfamiliar histories, seen in Charlie McCoy and Bo Carter’s “The Northern Starvers Are Returning Home,” which tells the story of migrants who, at a loss for jobs in the North, return to the South.
Disc two addresses historical moments such as the Mississippi Flood of 1927 and the ensuing damage. Selections include Lucille Bogan’s “Red Cross Man,” Walter Roland’s “Red Cross Blues no. 2,” and Walter Davis’s “Red Cross Blues.”
Disc three gives variations on the hard times of the unemployed, living in Hoovervilles, and the low wages and poor conditions of available jobs. During the 1930s we see many songs describing the difficult times with WPA and PWA jobs, as well as life on relief and “charity.” Even with a job, hard times persisted, as evidenced in Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Working On the Project,” or Lonnie Johnson’s “Hard Times Ain’t Gone Nowhere,” singing “People is ravin’ about hard times, I don’t know why they should… If some people was like me, they didn’t have money when times was good.”
The last disc brings in new sounds to familiar themes. Jump blues and boogie-woogie enter the mix, singing and swinging about hard times during war and post-war “Reconversion Blues” times, as Ivory Joe Hunter calls it. As troops returned from overseas, unemployment among black populations rose and hard times continued in familiar terms. The general plight of working class African Americans is given specific political voice as well as target in J.B. Lenoir’s “Eisenhower Blues.”
The collection provides an ironic twist to the phrase “Ain’t Times Hard,” which casts a light on the struggle and suffering of African Americans that lead to the Civil Rights Movement. Times were indeed always hard for black Americans, it was just the specifics that changed. I do not think it is by any means a coincidence that the last track in the collection was cut in 1954, the year of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS. No doubt that times would be hard for blacks in the coming years, perhaps harder than they had been in a long time, but the times were changing, and a whole new set of social and political circumstances now began to take effect.
(1) Evans, David. 2006. “Blues.” In African American Music: An Introduction, eds. Portia Maultsby and Mellonee Burnim, 79-96. New York: Routledge.
Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, by Ted Gioia. (W. W. Norton, October 20, 2008)
A comprehensive new history of the Delta blues by noted jazz author Ted Gioia, which journeys from Mississippi to Chicago while tracing the careers of many famous blues recording artists, including Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and B.B. King. This book will make a fine addition to any blues collection, and is recommended for public as well as academic libraries.
Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South, by Michelle R. Scott. (University of Illinois Press, August 2008).
The latest biography of Bessie Smith (1892-1937), the famous blues singer and entertainer who was originally known as the “queen of the blues” and gradually worked her way up to “empress.” While this might not be the definitive biography (there are several others in print, most notably Chris Albertson’s Bessie), it does include interesting discussions of the black entertainment industry, as well as the African American community within Chattanooga.
Will Marion Cook was one of the most important African American composers in the early 20th century, and a comprehensive biography is long overdue. Carter draws upon Cook’s unfinished autobiography as well as his wife Abbie’s memoir, and includes analyses of his most important works, including the musicals In Dahomey and Swing Along. This is a must read for anyone interested in Black music and musical theater between 1890-1920.
A wonderful two volume survey of artists including Ray Charles, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, Sam Cooke, Etta James, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, Temptations, Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Prince. Intended for public and school libraries, the volumes include selective bibliographies and discographies, as well as a multitude of side bars addressing everything from social issues to record labels, timelines, and chart topping hits.
In the words of our Director, Dr. Portia Maultsby, “This engaging book takes the reader on a journey across the multi-layered and multidisciplinary terrain of funk. This series of essays on music and the visual and literary arts reveal how ‘da funk’ represents innovation and aesthetic principles rooted in the Black vernacular, which defines the uniqueness of Black creativity. The Funk Era and Beyond is a must-read to understand funk as a philosophy, an attitude, a way of life, and more broadly, a cultural phenomena.”
This nearly 700 page tome documents the history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the avant-garde jazz scene in Chicago. A major contribution to jazz research, the book is scholarly yet highly readable and entertaining. The author also does a more than admirable job of entertwining the music scene with the racial and cultural aspects of the Chicago landscape.
This album is a great deal of fun, showcasing a completely different side of Willie Nelson as a blues crooner. The jump-blues numbers draw heavily upon the Texas and New Orleans influences of these two legends, and as one might expect, the jazz standards really cook as well. The recordings stem from the January 12 and 13, 2007 Jazz at Lincoln Center concert billed as “Willie Nelson Sings the Blues.” Highlights include Nelson’s rendition of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” the classic “Georgia On My Mind,” “Caldonia” and “Rainy Day Blues.”
The legendary B.B. King never seems to slow his pace, even as an octogenarian, and consequently he’s one of the few elder statemen to receive a Grammy nod for 2009. This album, produced by T Bone Burnett, is a return to the roots of the “King of the blues” and features such classics as Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” T-Bone Walker’s “I Get So Weary,” and Big Bill Broonzy’s “Backwater Blues.” Backing is provided by New Orleans pianist Dr. John, along with Jim Keltner on drums and Nathan East on bass. The CD should have concluded with the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sitting on Top of the World” (the penultimate track), since this certainly describes King’s place in the blues lexicon.
The Roy Hargove Quintet. Ear Food (Emarcy, June 2008)
Jazz trumpeter/bandleader Roy Hargrove’s latest offering includes thirteen tracks of post-bop jazz that bring more than a little soul into the mix. In addition to seven original tunes, the album includes some great covers, ranging from Cedar Walton’s “I’m Not So Sure” to “Speak Low” (by Kurt Weill & Ogden Nash) to Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home to Me.” You don’t have to be a hardcore jazz afficionado to enjoy this CD, which appeals to a wide fan base without EVER entering the smooth jazz territory.
S.M.V. is a new jazz-fusion supergroup composed of three of the greatest living bass players: Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten. What more is there to say? This is an album full of virtuoso performances and unique arrangements, with contributions from Chick Corea and George Duke. And, as one might expect from this crew, there is plenty of funk to go around, plus more than a dash of latin.
Solomon Burke. Like a Fire (Shout Factory, June 2008)
Pioneering soul singer Solomon Burke has released a wide variety of genre-bending albums in the past, including his country masterpiece Nashville (2006). What is unique about his latest offering is that each track was composed especially for him by an all-star group of songwriters, including Steve Jordan (the producer of the album), Eric Clapton (who wrote the title track), Ben Harper (who also sings with Burke on “A Minute To Rest and a Second To Pray”), and Jesse Harris and Keb’ Mo, who each contribute backing vocals and guitar on their songs. This CD has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category, which is a mystery, since there is nothing bluesy about it.
The son of famous blues singer John Lee Hooker is poised to carry on the family tradition. “Born in “Motor” City Detroit with Delta blues-filled blood running through his Motown veins,” John Jr. toured with his father while still a teen but his career was unfortuantely derailed by drugs and alcohol. He returned to the music scene in 2004, winning a number of awards with his debut album Blues With a Vengeance. His latest comtemporary urban blues release is the first to include all original tracks, and has already garnered a Grammy nomination.
This album was produced as a tribute to Perkins, who celebrated his 95th birthday on July 7, 2008. There is something to be said for Perkins not reaching out to the wider arena of pop music guests for his “Friends” album, as so many have done.The biggest names here are B.B. King and Eric Clapton, who both sit in for one cut each.Jimmy Vaughn stays for four tracks and provides the most satisfying musical exchanges of the short, ten song album. Also featured are bassist Willie Kent (who passed away in March 2008) and drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. Perkins still plays like a master, and his voice isn’t bad either. All in all, a fitting tribute to the legendary blues pianist.
To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story is a four disc (3 CDs + DVD)box set that chronologically covers the 36 year recording career of pianist/singer Nina Simone. Released by Legacy Recordings, the set is unique in providing a career-long profile of Simone’s music and life. A total of 51 songs comprise the compact discs. The DVD is a 23 minute audio/visual montage of 10 song and interview segments. Expansive and well researched liner notes are included with a brief overview on the artist by Ed Ward and background on the compilation provided by the set’s producer, Richard Seidel. Track by track notes are provided by David Nathan. Interspersed between the liner notes are black & white photographs of Simone from youth to middle age. Together, the CDs, video and liner notes provide valuable contextualization and position Simone as an important musical and political figure who was shaped by and played a role in shaping the social movements of her day.
The compact disc selections include 8 previously unreleased tracks and 43 reissues of songs spanning ten record labels, from Simone’s recording debut on Bethlehem in 1957 to her final major label recording on Elektra in 1993. An objective of the set (as stated by Seidel) is to highlight Simone’s distinctive conflation of eclectic musical genres or facets thereof inclusive of classical music, jazz, R&B, Broadway musicals, blues, folk songs, gospel and spirituals, rock, French songs, civil rights protest repertoire, and reggae. From a cultural research perspective, Simone’s eclectic mixture of music genres successfully counters music industry marketing strategies, at play since the 1920s, which tended to categorize Black music within rigidly constructed boundaries (e.g., “R&B” or “popular”) (see Maultsby 2006; Mahon 2004:142-175).
At the outset of her recording career, Simone was a prodigious musical talent foundationally grounded in classical music. Having experienced the harsh realities of racial discrimination and an early failed marriage, she brought a breadth of musical and personal maturity to her first recording date at the age of 24. Co-musical accompaniment on the selections ranges from jazz drums and bass instrumentation to arrangements for full orchestras. Simone’s singing voice-a later compliment to her fluid pianistic skills-is poignant, at times harsh, and almost always captivating.
The first compact disc in the set covers Simone’s career from 1957 to 1968. Twenty songs range in thematic and generic categories from Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy” to a French love ballad by Jacques Brel, “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” to “Four Women,” a Simone original that addresses the discriminatory social effects between four Black women of different skin color. The second compact disc includes seventeen recordings from 1968 to 1969. The opening selection is a Simone composition, “Mississippi Goddam,” written for the highly publicized 1963 murder of four black girls in Alabama. The song was recorded in a live performance within days following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Simone’s reference to the tragedy and her rebuke to her audience to “sing along with me… for God’s sake … the time is late” is sadly stirring. In stark contrast, the following song by Barry Gibb (of The Bee Gees), “In the Morning,” is an optimistic outlook on the potentialities of carefree life. The CD closes with Leonard Cohen’s poem set to music, “Suzanne.” The third compact disc spans recordings from 1969 to 1993. Simone’s deeply moving delivery of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” is enhanced by background data on her life, including the recent separation from her second husband, Andrew Stroud. For the final 33 years of Simone’s life, from the early 1970s to her death in 2003, she lived outside of the United States, variously in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. The final two selections of the box set reflect the world weary life that had become Simone’s-an orchestrated reggae rendition of Randy Newman’s “Baltimore” and Rod McKuen’s “A Single Woman.”
The DVD, produced by Peter Aristotle Rodis, situates an already superb CD box set over the top. One might think of Simone as an explosively, multi-generic, “black aesthetic” artist who brought much more to her performance than mere song. She infuses melody, harmony and rhythm with growls and screams from pain and joy. She rises from her pianistic posture to dance about the stage in an ecstatic trance. She interacts emphatically with the audience and the musicians on stage. In her own words from a late 1960s interview, “I’ve always thought that I was shaking people up, but now I wanna go at it more and I want to go at it deliberately. I want to go at it coldly. I want to shake people up so bad that when I leave a night club … I just want them to go to pieces. Where we’re all groovin.’ And that’s my ideal of a good performance, when I have pleased me and pleased them and everybody’s feeling alright, we’re all groovin’ now.”
Here’s Legacy’s promo video for To Be Free, featuring Simone singing the title track:
Whether you’re a novice to Nina Simone’s music or a long time fan, To Be Free, listed for sale at $49.99, is well worth the price.
Editor’s note: To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story was recently nominated for a Grammy for Best Historical Album.
References
Maultsby, Portia. 2005. “Marginalizing and Mainstreaming Black Popular Music: An Interpretation of Marketing Labels.” Unpublished paper presented at the 2005 Society for Ethnomusicology conference. Atlanta, Georgia.
Mahon, Maureen. 2004. Right to Rock. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Title: Delmark: 55 Years of Blues
Artists: Various
Label: Delmark
Catalog No.: (CD + DVD)
Release date: 2008
Title: Delmark: 55 Years of Jazz
Artists: Various
Label: Delmark
Catalog No.: (CD + DVD)
Release date: 2008
Bob Koester may have been selling records since the early 1950s, but the Chicagoan truly could be called one of America’s finest music archivists. Not simply content to sell records, initially out of his dorm room at St. Louis University and later out of storefronts, he began to seek out blues and jazz musicians from decades before to record them. His Delmar Records later became Delmark and his Jazz Record Mart is a mecca for all music lovers.
While others, including his protégé Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records, sought to take the blues to wider commercial exposure, Koester remains the person who takes listeners- and more recently DVD viewers- into storied haunts such as Rosa’s, B.L.U.E.S., the Velvet Lounge and the Green Mill, simply because it’s where the music still lives.
These two anthologies, which also feature live recorded performances on DVD, showcase the support that Koester has had for underappreciated performers such as Curtis Fuller (who was featured on John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” nearly 40 years ago), tenorist Ari Brown, and singing blues bassist Willie Kent. Country bluesman Big Joe Williams was a major part of Delmark’s history as one of its first recording artists. His “Coffeehouse Blues” is included here.
Sometimes, these recordings were not as slick as those produced by the major labels. Instead, Koester saw value in releasing performances that importantly provide a window into the development of artists such as the West Side soul man Magic Sam, pianist Roosevelt Sykes, and guitarist Otis Rush. Again, they often take listeners into the same, sometimes gritty clubs Koester famously has explored most Saturday nights.
Without Koester, we perhaps may have never known Junior Wells, whose “Hoodoo Man Blues” remains one of the label’s biggest sellers. 55 Years of Blues features Wells’s 1975 live radio recording of “Little By Little” in Theresa’s Lounge. Today, Koester supports artists such as James Yancy “Tail Dragger” Jones and Francine Griffin, who may not have recorded decades earlier, but still are part of the musical legacy.
Koester and Delmark are also renowned for unearthing old master recordings and long lost vinyl, including those featured in these collections from Coleman Hawkins, J.B. Hutto, Sun Ra and Art Hodes. Commercial viability wasn’t the first concern. It was simply important to rescue and release recordings that otherwise would have gone silent.
Many grateful fans have Koester to thank for sharing his love for the music.
Title: Pay Me No Mind
Artist: Homemade Jamz Blues Band
Label: Northern Blues
Catalog No.: NBM0048
Date: 2008
The first thing anyone will mention about this band is the age of its members. The Homemade Jamz Blues Band are kids, literally. Guitar player and lead vocalist Ryan is 16, bass player Kyle is 14, and the drummer Taya is 10. They are also siblings. So what we’ve got here is an astonishing amount of talent for their age, with the added novelty that they’re all family. The band began when Ryan, age 9, picked up his fathers’ worn Stratocaster knock-off that he’d gotten in Korea while serving in the military. Under the tutelage and guidance of their parents, the three siblings have broken into a tradition that is usually reserved for musicians twice their age. A discussion of the instruments was also featured in a recent NPR interview.
Recorded in their hometown, Tupelo, Miss., Pay Me No Mind is an energetic debut of fresh and up and coming talent. All songs were written by their father, Renaud Perry, except for the last track, a fired up version of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” Renaud also makes an appearance on four songs, blowing a very “proud papa” harmonica. The album is reminiscent of sixties electric blues with bright tones from the leads, a strong walking bass, and a simple back beat keeping time. Sixteen-year-old Ryan’s voice has a rich and full quality that cuts and growls and will only blossom as he gets older.
One of the most interesting things about Homemade Jamz is their instruments. Ryan plays what appears to be a muffler, welded and wired into an electric guitar, while Kyle plays “Thunder,” a six string bass that has been fashioned out of what looks like a Ford muffler. Both instruments were handmade by Renaud, and speak to a “homemade aesthetic” that connects the band to a greater blues tradition. Renaud cites that he had intended to re-build a car with his son but when the muffler came in, he took one look at thought it was just the right size for a guitar. He was even more satisfied with the sound it produced.
The Perry family band has been hard at work with a grueling tour schedule of festivals and club dates that have landed them third place at the 3rd Annual MS Delta Blues Society of Indianola’s Blues Challenge in 2006, second place at the 2007 International Blues Challenge, and they were recently voted Best New Artist of the year at the 2008 West Coast Blues Hall of Fame. More than just a gimmick, these kids have talent, and with nods of encouragement from the likes of legendary bluesman B.B. King, this passing of the torch ensures that a new generation will carry on in the blues tradition.
Posted by Thomas Richardson and Heather O’Sullivan
Title: Classic Blues Artwork/Songs from the 1920s, Vol. 6
Artists: Various
Publisher: Blues Images
Format: Calendar with accompanying CD
Date: 2008
If you’ve never come across the annual Classic Blues calendars produced by collector, dealer, and blues expert John Tefteller, you’ve been missing out on some of the best blues iconography in existence. Each month when you flip over the page you’ll be thrilled with the beautifully reproduced (and often hysterically funny) graphics from the 1920s and ‘30s that were used to promote early jazz and blues records. And that’s not all- the calendars come packaged with an accompanying CD featuring pre-war blues rarities aplenty, including the 12 songs/artists featured in the calendar, plus 6 additional bonus tracks.
This year Tefteller has really outdone himself. The CD features two newly discovered songs by Blind Blake, “Night & Day Blues” and “Sun to Sun,” plus two more by Ben Curry, “The Laffing Rag” and “Hot Dog”- all recorded in 1932 by Paramount in Grafton, Wisconsin. The two songs by guitarist Blind Blake were from Paramount 13123, recorded at Blake’s penultimate session for Paramount in January 1932. Shortly thereafter, Blake literally vanished without a trace, Paramount folded, and no copy of the record has ever been found- until last summer.
The story behind these newly discovered Blind Blake disc is the stuff of dreams for record collectors: “Like a time capsule, this small steamer trunk sat unopened for nearly four decades in a trailer park on the east side of Raleigh, North Carolina. Its contents, about one hundred 78 rpm records, still in their original paper sleeves, represent some of the greatest blues artists active during the Great Depression. . . The records were bought new in the 1930s by an African-American couple living in Granville County, NC, adjacent to Durham County, the epicenter of blues activity in the Carolinas. A telephone tip and subsequent negotiations led to the acquisition of the collection by Marshall Wyatt of Old Hat Records.” The whole “Trunk Full o’ Blues” story, along with illustrations and sound clips, can be found on the Old Hat website. Similarly, the previously unknown Curry disc was discovered last February in a pile of old 78s in Missouri. Several other previously unreleased test pressings round out the bonus tracks.
Other selections on the CD that are represented in the calendar include Kokomo Arnold’s “Milk Cow Blues,” Charley Patton’s masterpiece “Shake It and Break It” (recorded in 1929 in Richmond, Indiana), “Nightmare” (featured on the cover) by Elgar’s Creole Orchestra, Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe’s “Cherry Ball Blues,” and two sermons- “The Death of Blind Lemon [Jefferson]” by Rev. Emmett Dickenson, and “Death May Be Your Christmas Present” by Rev. A.W. Nix, who sold thousands of records with his hellfire and brimstone preaching. As Tefteller describes the latter sermon, “One can only imagine the Christmas happiness that was wiped out in a single three minute listening of this amazing record! By the time you get to the end, you won’t want to celebrate Christmas . . . or any other holiday. Talk about having the BLUES at Christmas!”
We predict that you, too, will have the blues at Christmas if you miss out on an opportunity to purchase this amazing package.
Welcome to the November “Yes We Can!” issue of Black Grooves. In honor of the historic election, we’re featuring several politically themed items, ranging from a recent documentary about Marcus Garvey that’s accompanied by a phenomenal reggae soundtrack, to the overtly revolutionary rap of Peruvian-born MC Immortal Technique. Other hip hop offerings include new releases by Kentucky’s Nappy Roots and Atlanta rapper T.I. Though it might sound like an expose on shady politics, the compilation More Dirty Laundry actually explores “the soul of Black country music.” Two new offerings in our ongoing exploration of black rock include Danielia Cotton’s Rare Child and TV on the Radio’s Dear Science. Wrapping up this issue are recent releases by blues guitarist Eric Bibb, The Murrill Family of gospel singers, jazz vocalist/bass player Esperanza Spalding, and neo-soul singer Rafael Saadiq.
Note: Since we “borrowed” the Trib’s front page, it seems only fair to give them a plug in return. You can buy a copy of the “Obama Wins!” issue here.
Although he is frequently classified as a blues singer/songwriter, Eric Bibb draws most heavily from the music of black churches on his latest release, Get Onboard. Whereas only one of its songs is cast in a standard twelve-bar blues form, the album is permeated by the sounds of gospel and of spirituals. Many of the songs’ lyrics are of religious or spiritual themes, although the music on Get Onboard ranges in character from the boldly defiant to the quirky and humorous.
To my ears, Get Onboard seems uneven; a certain flatness or lack of energy characterizes several of its songs, making them unable to sustain repeated hearings. This flatness is most apparent on the album’s heavier tracks—especially its opener, “Spirit I Am.” Replete with several backing vocalists, this song aspires to convey the impression of a congregation en masse as it repeatedly intones the phrase, “I live for the Spirit I am.” But the voices blend a little too smoothly for my taste; greater distinction among the backing vocalists would have been more powerful. Additionally, Bibb’s delivery of the song’s verses is not sufficiently emotional.
Bibb shines more on songs depicting humility and supplication, as well as on the album’s more humorous numbers. “If Our Hearts Ain’t In It” (which features Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar) describes feelings of religious ambivalence: one can go through the motions of religion—“Go to church seven days a week / Read the Bible three hours a day”—without actually experiencing any religious fervor of one’s own—“If our hearts ain’t in it / Ain’t nothing much is gonna change.” Bibb’s voice sounds weak and wavering in this song, fitting the mood of its lyrics; the wandering quality of the harmonies also helps the ambivalence.
“Conversation,” a duet with Ruthie Foster, is cute. The only twelve-bar blues song on the album, it offers a humorous musical setting of a conversation between a couple who don’t spend enough time together:
You’re workin’ all the time
What about you an’ me?
Your’re workin’ all the time
Honey, what about you an’ me?
Aw, baby, baby, baby,
I just miss your company.
The somewhat jaunty and unpredictable musical accompaniment lends a touch of irony to the ostensible love duet.
Despite its occasional winners, Get Onboard suffers greatly from the aforementioned lack of zeal, and I cannot give it my fullest recommendation. I would, nevertheless, like to note how well produced the album is; many of its songs feature large instrumental ensembles, but their sound is never homogenized and the individual instruments can be heard distinctly.
Posted by John Reef
Promotional video showing the making of Get Onboard, courtesy of Telarc:
Up Jumped the Devil is an interesting idea; American “Devil” Songs traces, in a loose fashion, various appearances of the devil in American music from Jelly Roll Morton ’s “Boogaboo” in 1928 to Gene Vincent’s “Race with the Devil” in 1956. But what is most interesting and fun about the disc are the particular songs that populate the 20-track compilation. Focusing on the 1920s through the 1950s, the CD traces the movement of American music from the more distinct genres of blues, gospel, jazz, and folk to later confluences of these styles. The mixing currents are heard in the guitar of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the jazz rhythms of Washboard Sam, and the country, blues, and gospel influences of Gene Vincent’s rockabilly.
The UK has a long history of deep explorations into American music, and the Viper label does justice to that legacy with this release. Not satisfied with repackaging the most commonly heard cuts that may have referenced the devil, Up Jumped the Devil finds more obscure cuts that make the disc worth owning.
The content ranges from county blues of lesser known guitarist “Bo Carter” Chatmon (slightly more famous for performing with his brothers as the Mississippi Sheiks), to the more famous Skip James, and, of course, the most famous connection of bluesmen to the devil, Robert Johnson. Included here is Johnson’s “Me and The Devil Blues,” rather than his more commonly anthologized “Hellhound on My Trail.” Also featured are foot stomping piano and electric guitar tracks from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Otis Spann. These rhythm and blues tracks demonstrate the driving force, the wild solos, and the groove which would fuel the debates of those who both praised and derided rock ‘n’ roll in subsequent years.
The inclusion of jazz tunes (some sounding hilariously innocuous, such as Jelly Roll Morton’s “Boogaboo”) from the early part of the century also provides a broader context, illustrating how the motif of the devil played out in different genres. With the Kansas City Six, “Pagin’ the Devil” seems an obviously tongue in cheek reference to the new sounds of Charlie Christian’s electric guitar, leading the listen to believe some took the idea of the devil’s influence on music more seriously than others.
Not only is the disc a mix of genres with their attendant versions of what the devil’s influence did or did not mean, but it also culls from both black and white musical traditions. While stylistically segregated, the motif runs through both histories, which is a helpful bit of thinking since when the 1950s came along, the notions of rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll blurred racial lines in music.
Up Jumped the Devil provides no clear thesis on what the devil motif means in American music. In fact, the diversity of meanings implies that a unified vision never existed. For many of the bluesmen, the devil was an explanation of their women’s wild ways, and an excuse for violence towards them, whereas with some of the jazz tunes, it could be inferred as a reckless freedom of rhythm and sound. The tracks go back and forth between musical styles and musical meanings, allowing the listening to find connections whereever they like. Similarly, the sequence of the songs is not chronological, but jumps through time and genre to provide a patchwork of Americana within this forty year span.
Comprehensive liner notes were written by Steve Hardstaff, who also did the graphic design work which is clearly influenced by R. Crumb’s illustrations of early jazz, blues, and country music.
Track listing:
Gene Vincent – Race With the Devil (1956)
Fats Waller – There’s Going To Be the Devil To Pay (1935)
Bo Carter – Old Devil (circa 1938)
Charlie Christian – Pagin’ the Devil (1939)
Woodie Brothers – Chased Old Satan Through the Door (1931)
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Little Demon (1956)
Byron Parker and his Mountaineers – Up Jumped the Devil (1940)
Skip James – Devil Got My Women (1931)
Fess Parker and his Royal Flush Orchestra – Feelin’ Devilish (1930)
Bessie Smith – Blue Spirit Blues (1929)
Oliver Brown – Oh You Devil You (1935)
The Clovers – Devil or Angel (1955)
Almanac Singers – Get Behind Me Satan (1941)
Sister Rosetta Tharpe – The Devil Has Thrown Him Down (1943)
Powder River Jack and Kitty Lee – Tying a Knot in the Devil’s Tail (circa 1930)
Washboard Sam – She Belongs to the Devil (1941)
Jack Teagarden – Putting Salt on the Devil’s Tail (circa 1941)
Otis Spann – I’d Rather Be the Devil (1954)
Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers – Boogaboo (1928)
Robert Johnson – Me and the Devil Blues, version 1 (1937)
From the opening wah-wah chords on Buddy Guy’s new release, Skin Deep, the legendary guitarist demonstrates why he’s been an influence on Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and numerous other blues players on the south side of Chicago. While he often professes reverence for his role models, B.B. King and T-Bone Walker, the torch was passed long ago when it came to guitar heroes.
What’s hard to understand is how, at age 72, Guy hasn’t exercised more creative control before now. In press materials accompanying this album of all original material (he wrote or co-wrote seven of its 12 tracks), he claims this is the first time he’s had such freedom and control.
Better late than never. This is a fun, down deep and dirty album from start to finish.
Skin Deep takes listeners back to the traditional blues Guy has been identified with for nearly a half century, after a recent series of otherwise fine albums whose only flaw was their occasional leanings toward catering to guest performers—such as Carlos Santana and John Meyer—and their fan bases. While Guy is again joined by esteemed guest performers on Skin Deep—including Susan Tedeschi , Derek Trucks, Eric Clapton and Robert Randolph—their collaborations pay genuine homage to the blues genre.
A good example of this is Randolph’s searing steel pedal guitar performance on the sixth cut, “Out in the Woods,” which Guy penned and says hearkens back to one of his signature songs, “The First Time I Met the Blues.” Guy literally was born in the woods of a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, Louisiana.
As Guy sang on the seminal recording, recorded at Chess studios in the 1960s, “Blues, you know you ran me, ran me from tree to tree. Yes, you shoulda heard me beg ya, blues. Ah, blues, don’t murder me.”
Today, as a survivor, “with wolf blood in my veins,” he takes Randolph and the listener back in place and time to the swamp where “the crocodiles and the foxes and the grizzlies, they all know me by my name.” The interplay between the two guitarists vividly conjures the imagery of rattlesnakes and alligators of his sharecropping youth that he sings about.
“I ain’t afraid of nothing,” Guy intones. “The boogieman start running when he hears me coming.”
As you hear Guy and his guitar growl, believe it.
Age can bring wisdom and Guy’s reflection on the wounds of racism, the title cut “Skin Deep,” may have simple message, “underneath we’re all the same,” but Guy’s soulful delivery makes one take pause to ask why more people can’t apply this simple truism. Interestingly, Guy says the inspiration for the song was his being reunited recently with a white childhood friend whose parents had cut off their relationship as teens.
Much can be written about the interplay between Guy and his protégé, Clapton, but on perhaps one of the most interesting cuts, Guy raises a question about the ones who make the blues: “Who’s Gonna Fill Those Shoes?” After presenting a review of those who came before him in the blues pantheon, Guy turns things over to up-and-coming pre-teen guitar phenom Quinn Sullivan. One of the last of his generation, Guy learned at the feet of Otis Rush and Muddy Waters. He doesn’t answer the song’s question but allows the youngster to give us something to think about.
By the time you get the closing track, “I Found Happiness,” you believe Guy when he says that he has.
Afrissippi’s Alliance represents a skilled fusion of Mississippi blues and Senegalese musical traditions. Guelel Kumba, guitarist and lead vocalist, is a member of the Fulani from the Futa Tooro region of West Africa. Not content with restricting his musical efforts to learning the molo (a one-stringed guitar) and several centuries worth of griot songs and oral traditions, Guelel also picked up the six-stringed guitar, fell in love with delta blues, and—following an invitation from Eric Deaton—moved to North Mississippi to study the work of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.
Upon his arrival in the States, Guelel and Deaton quickly drew together a number of other musicians, including Kinney Kimbrough, Papa Assane M’Baye, and Justin Showah, and formed Afrissippi. Although the group released its first album, Fulani Journey, in 2006 and has a large fan following, its efforts have received scant attention from www.allmusic.com and Amazon, both of which have stuffed Afrissippi’s albums into the rather non-descript “world music” genre. Even Wikipedia seems to have passed them over. At least the Fund for Folk Culture has proven more attentive and in 2007 it awarded Guelel with a grant to support the recording and release of Alliance.
For the most part, the album leans more heavily to the Senegalese side of the musical spectrum. The blues’ influences are the heaviest on “Singha,” “Ngoppe Kam,” and “Debbo Ndoogu,” where the guitars take on a grittier American sound. In the case of Debbo, the rhythms, harmonic patterns, and Guelel’s vocal timbre are solidly in the blues’ tradition and the drum kit nearly overpowers the ever-present sound of the saubaru. For the most part, however, the singing, ostinato guitar parts, and laidback rhythms are more reminiscent of Senegal than Mississippi. “Raas” even drops the guitars in favor of a more traditional combination of solo voice and polyphonic percussion. The final track of the CD consists of a heavily reverbed version of “Gede Nooro,” sung solo and a capella by Guelel.
The one fault of the promo copy is an utter lack of liner notes. Hopefully this isn’t the case with the officially released version. Not understanding Fulani—or even being certain that Guelel is actually singing in Fulani—it’s difficult to comment on the lyrical content of the CD. Although translated lyrics aren’t necessary for enjoying the album, it does leave room for speculation on the part of listeners and a few online sources have already commented on its “ancient” feel and “future primitive” vibe. With the exception of “Raas” and “Gede Nooro,” the album really falls more towards popular as opposed to traditional Senegalese music. Although Afrissippi’s promotional material does encourage some degree of exoticization as a marketing ploy, it would be nice to balance this out with a bit of cultural information within the album itself.
All and all, Afrissippi is a good band that definitely deserves more attention than it’s currently receiving. Hopefully this recent release and the band’s 2008 United States tour will push it more into the limelight.
Maestro, Taj Mahal’s newest album, celebrates the fortieth anniversary of his self-titled debut with an exciting assortment of guests, including Los Lobos, Ziggy Marley, Ben Harper, and Toumani Diabate. Their collaborations account for the more eclectic tracks on this album, including the reggae-infused “Black Man, Brown Man” (penned by Taj Mahal and previously recorded for his 1976 album, Satisfied ‘N’ Tickled Too), and “Zanzibar,” which features the kora, a West-African harplike instrument. “Never Let You Go,” on which Taj Mahal plays the ukelele and is backed by Los Lobos, recalls certain soulful rock and R&B tunes from the 1960s, such as “When a Man Loves a Woman” (Percy Sledge), “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (Procol Harum), and “Maybe” (Janis Joplin).
Roughly half of Maestro, however, comprises uptempo songs based on the standard twelve-bar blues format. These blues-based numbers are often laced with humor, and may deviate from expected harmonic patterns. The opening track, “Scratch My Back,” features a rhythmically jaunty musical arrangement and playfully suggestive lyrics; these qualities remind me of another famous “humorous” blues song, Bob Dylan’s “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat.” In “Dust Me Down,” written by Ben Harper, the twelve-bar blues format illustrates its capacity for endless reinvention; quirky chord substitutions contradict, but do not undermine, the expected harmonies, yielding an edgier musical construction to complement the heavily distorted guitar that drives the song.
In my opinion, “Strong Man Holler” is the strongest selection on Maestro. It is the only slow twelve-bar blues (more or less) on the album, and is remarkable for the poignant vocal timbres Taj Mahal achieves as he moans in the lowest part of his register. The verses of this song, moreover, are remarkable for treading the boundary between singing and heavily rhythmicized speech.
The biggest pitfall of Maestro is in its production. Although several individuals shared production duties, the sound they achieved is too homogenous. Distorted guitars and the Hammond B3 organ dominate the sound, leaving the other instruments to coalesce quietly in the background. Thus, Toumani Diabate’s virtuosic kora playing on “Zanzibar” sometimes gets lost in the texture, as does some of Taj Mahal’s banjo playing throughout the album. In all, I recommend listening to Maestro, but I fear that its overly homogenous sound, as well as its occasionally generic songwriting, may cause its allure quickly to become used up.
Posted by John Reef
Promo video featuring an interview with Taj Mahal provided by Heads Up International:
Of the various ingredients that go into making a music recording masterpiece, the following items are likely to be placed at the top of the list: the selection of highly skilled yet creative musicians who excel in the selected musical genre; musicians who complement one another within the musical recording unit; and a recording environment conducive to optimal performance. All of these features are realized in Cassandra Wilson’s self-produced recording, Loverly. The performance represents a return to Wilson’s jazz and blues roots, following her more pop influenced recent releases, such as Glamoured (2003) and Thunderbird (2006). In Loverly, as in Wilson’s earlier jazz recordings, the singer is both the centerpiece and a collaborative ensemble player. Her presence is palpable but not overbearing, leaving room for, and even welcoming, creative interplay between the various members of the ensemble.
Wilson’s voice and musicianship are in superb shape. Singing in tune and at ease, she transforms the repertoire into her own artistic statements, occasionally laughing, moaning, snapping her fingers, or cueing the band with verbal comments from the background. At a few points during the recording, she comfortably wanders to a corner of the room where she briefly sings, accessing the acoustics of space and environment available to her. The recording environment itself is key, taking place in a rented house in Wilson’s hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, away from the more stressful surroundings of New York where most (if not all) of the musicians reside.
The ensemble is comprised of mutually familiar musicians who have played with one another in various groups and situations, in some cases, reaching back over a decade. Mostly grounded in the jazz idiom, they each bring unique strengths. In particular, pianist Jason Moran, a brilliant virtuosic improviser, inspires rather than overpowers on jazz standards such as “Lover Come Back to Me” and “Caravan,” as well as the jazz reinterpretation of the popular film tune, “Gone with the Wind.” Guitarist Martin Sewell dominates on the two blues tunes with a funky rendition of “St. James Infirmary” and a slide guitar basis for “Dust My Broom.” A driving rhythmic undercurrent between drummer Herlin Riley and Nigerian percussionist Lekan Babalola is laid out on the recording. The ensemble is completed with Lonnie Plaxico on bass, and there are guest appearances from bassist Reggie Veil and trumpeter Nicholas Payton.
In all, Loverly is one of Wilson’s best recordings to date and a welcome return to her roots. Loverly indeed!
Ain’t Gonna Settle Down: The Pioneering Blues of Mary Stafford and Edith Wilson is a wonderfully packaged 2-CD set that marks the sixth installment in Archeophone’s Jazz, Dance & Blues series (previous titles in the series explore the works of Art Hickman’s Orchestra, the Six Brown Brothers, the Benson Orchestra of Chicago, and Wilbur Sweatman’s Original Jazz Band). Based in Champaign, Illinois, Archeophone Records has established itself as one of the premier historical reissue labels. Over the past ten years they’ve released over 40 superbly remastered recordings, all drawn from the acoustic era (early 1890s to mid-1920s).
One of the primary factors that sets Archeophone apart from other reissue labels is the level of scholarship that goes into each and every set. The liner notes for Ain’t Gonna Settle Down are no exception—topping out at 30 pages in a font small enough to require bifocals, they include as much detail as one can possibly cram into a standard size CD booklet. The biographical essay, “Stafford and Wilson: Trailblazers in a Brave New World” by blues scholar Steve Tracy, presents the complete story of these two artists which I will briefly summarize.
Mary Stafford was one of the earliest recorded blues singers, preceding Bessie Smith in the studio by two years. Her career and contributions, however, have been largely forgotten. Tracy attributes this oversight to a general dearth of research into early female blues singers who were more closely affiliated with the vaudeville stage and performed a sophisticated, hybrid form of the blues backed by jazz combos. Instead, scholars have paid far more attention to the early female blues shouters.
Details on Stafford’s life remain sketchy. Born around 1895, possibly in Missouri, she became a popular figure in the 1920s, performing frequently with Eubie Blake, Bessie Smith, and Willie “The Lion” Smith. In 1921 she recorded 13 sides for Columbia in New York, backed by Charlie Johnson’s Orchestra (listed on the recordings as Mary Stafford and Her Jazz Band), consisting of trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and alto sax, with Johnson on piano. Although Stafford continued to perform until her death in the late 1930s, she would only visit the recording studio one more time in 1926, when she recorded two double-entendre blues songs for Pathé-Actuelle.
The first CD includes the entire output of Stafford’s recording career, with the exception of a “Shuffle Along Medley” from 1921 which was never released. Two of the sides recorded in 1921 were “covers” of songs previously recorded by Mamie Smith, including the “Royal Garden Blues” by Clarence and Spencer Williams, which became a standard and was later recorded by a wide variety of artists ranging from Ethel Waters and Sissle & Blake to Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie. Another highlight from the 1921 sessions is “Down Home Blues,” a 12-bar blues standard with some great “crying effects” provided by band. The last two songs, recorded in 1926, are perhaps most notable for the contributions of Buster Bailey on clarinet. “Ain’t Nobody to Grind My Coffee in the Morning,” displays a less refined side of Stafford, sung in a lower register with a bit of wailing on the side. The final track, “Take Your Finger Off It” is a humorous ditty which obviously refers to a part of Katie King’s anatomy—and not her “signet ring” mentioned in the opening stanza.
The remaining 10 tracks on the first CD and the entire second CD are devoted to Edith Wilson, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, who Tracy considers an underappreciated popularizer of the vaudeville/cabaret blues. Wilson had a long and fascinating career which lasted from the 1910s to the 1970s and included work on the stage, in the studio, and on the silver screen. She initially made a name for herself in the 1920s as a performer in various African American musical revues such as the Plantation Revue, Creole Follies, and Jazzmania Revue, and the London tours of the Blackbirds Revue and From Dover Street to Dixie. Between 1921 and 1925, Wilson participated in 21 recording sessions for Columbia, resulting in 26 sides that were ultimately issued (11 were never released).
Wilson’s big break came in 1929 with a starring role in the Hot Chocolates revue.She also starred in Shuffle Along of 1933, Blackbirds of 1933 (and 1934), and the Rhapsody in Black Revue. In 1939 she moved to California and gained roles in the films I’m Still Alive and To Have and Have Not,followed by a stint in the 1944 Showboat revival with Todd Duncan. Wilson was also a member of the cast of the Amos and Andy radio show and portrayed Aunt Jemima in various commercials—roles that were not without controversy in the African American community. She revived her career in the 1970s, making several recordings for Chicago’s Delmark Records and appearing in Blacks on Broadway, before passing away in Chicago in 1981.
There are many highlights to be found on Wilson’s portion of the set. Several tracks reprise her stage roles, such as the 1929 Brunswick recordings of the Andy Razaf/Fats Waller/Harry Brooks’ songs “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” and “My Man Is Good For Nothing But Love” from Hot Chocolates. Also featured are the songs “Loving You the Way I Do” and “The Penalty of Love” from the 1930 musical revue Hot Rhythm, with accompaniment provided by well-known jazz trumpeter Bubber Miley and His Mileage Makers. Jazz aficionados will no doubt also appreciate two sides recorded for Columbia in 1924—“Daddy Change Your Mind” and “I Don’t Know and I Don’t Care Blues”—that are backed by a band featuring Fletcher Henderson on piano and Don Redman on clarinet. Two other sides from 1924—“How Come You Do Me Like You Do” and “Muscle Shoals Blues”—showcase the guitar accompaniment of Roy Smeck (listed as “Alabama Joe”), a veteran of the vaudeville circuit and hundreds of recording sessions.
Ain’t Gonna Settle Down will be of interest to fans of early jazz, blues, or vaudeville, and should also be considered for inclusion in university music libraries. Anyone interested in exploring early recordings by African American artists will find a number of other must-have titles in the Archeophone catalog including: Lost Sounds(the companion CD to the book by the same title); The Complete Bert Williams (3 CDs spanning 1901-1922); and Marion Harris: The Complete Victor Releases. Attractively priced package deals can be found on the label’s website.
Rufus Thomas is best known as the Memphis soul singer who, along with daughter Carla Thomas, helped the fledgling Stax label rise to fame in the ‘60s and ‘70s. His biggest hits-”Do the Funky Chicken” and “Walking the Dog“–not only became his signature songs, but established Thomas as a consummate entertainer. Not surprisingly, he first honed these skills as a vaudeville performer and emcee for shows down on Beale Street. Thomas also had a long career at WDIA in Memphis, the nation’s first all-Black format radio station, where he spun rhythm and blues records that caught the attention of many a white teenager, including a young Elvis Presley. Since his fellow WDIA deejay was none other than B.B. King, it should come as no surprise that Thomas decided to take a stab at recording. “I just wanted to be on record. I never thought of getting rich. I just wanted to be known, be a recording artist.”
From 1949 to 1956 Thomas recorded 28 sides for various labels, though a number were unissued and have since been lost (all extant recordings have been included in this compilation). His first sessions in Memphis were for the Star Talent label (based in Dallas) and featured several of his own songs, including the bluesy “I’m So Worried,” the somewhat derivative “I’ll Be Good Boy,” and the previously unreleased “Who’s That Chick” and “Double Trouble” (the latter in rather poor sound). These were followed by two sides for Bullet-the rockin’ party song “Beer Bottle Boogie” and another of Thomas’ own compositions, “Gonna Bring My Baby Back,” a swinging jazz number backed by members of Lionel Hampton’s band let by saxophonist Bobby Platter.
The following year Thomas stopped in at Memphis Recording Service–soon to be renamed Sun Studios–and convinced Sam Phillips to record several songs which were released on the Chess label, including “Night Workin’ Blues,” his own cryin’ blues tune “Why Did You Deegee,” the uptempo boogie woogie “Crazy About You Baby” featuring Billy Love on piano, and “No More Dogging Around.” Additional sessions followed in 1952 producing the notable song “Decorate the Counter”–this had originally been recorded by Rosco Gordon, but only Thomas’ version was released by Chess (both versions are included on the CD for comparison). Two additional songs were recorded at the same session but were never released: “Married Woman” included here with two alternate takes; and “I’m Off Of That Stuff” which is a bit stiff, not to mention somewhat truncated.
Thomas’ big break came in 1953 when he recorded “Bear Cat” for the new Sun label. An answer song to Big Mama Thornton’s bluesy “Hound Dog” that had topped the charts a few weeks earlier (also included on the CD), “Bear Cat” was a huge hit, signaling the shift towards rock ‘n’ roll and no doubt making an impression on Elvis Presley, whose cover of “Hound Dog” catapulted both him and Sun Records to fame three years later. Thomas cut several more sides for Sun, including “Tiger Man (King of the Jungle)” complete with Tarzan yells, and the straight-ahead blues song “Save That Money.” His early recording career concluded at Meteor, a short-lived Memphis label, which released “The Easy Living Plan” and “I’m Steady Holdin’ On,” both penned by Rufus Thomas and Joe Bihar.
Rufus Thomas: His R&B Recordings, 1949-1956 is a great tribute to this legendary artist who passed away in 2001. Interestingly, two other compilations including much of the same material have also been released in 2008 by Document Records and Important Artists. However, the Bear Family set is far superior in terms of remastering and production. The wonderfully illustrated 67 page booklet (bound into the package) features a complete 1950s discography and an overview of Thomas’ pre-Stax career by Martin Hawkins, including lengthy discussions about the role of WDIA and Black radio.
The other thing that really sets this CD apart are the bonus features and alternate takes previously mentioned, as well as airchecks from Thomas’s WDAI radio show and a ten minute interview from the Daddy Cool Show. With a total of 29 tracks, this is indeed the definitive compilation of Thomas’s early recordings. Anyone interested in Memphis soul, the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, and the story of Black radio will want to purchase this set–it would also be perfect for classroom use. Rufus Thomas: His R&B Recordings, 1949-1956 is absolutely the best single CD historical reissue that I’ve come across in 2008.
Eric Gales grew up in a musical family in Memphis, TN, learning to play guitar upside down and left-handed from his older brothers Eugene and Manuel. Gales won his first blues contest at age 11 and went on to release his first record at the tender age of 16 for Elektra in 1991. He has been recording and touring more or less ever since. The Story of My Life, produced by Mike Varney and co-produced by Gales himself, is his latest release on the Blues Bureau International label (a division of The Shrapnel Label Group), preceded by Crystal Vision (2006) and Psychedelic Underground (2007).
Heralded early on in life as an African American upside-down, left-handed guitar virtuoso fielding a hard-driving musical mixture of blues and rock, Gales has most often been compared with Jimi Hendrix, though his influences have also been described as including Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cream, and even Eric Johnson. The Story of My Life is promoted as “the next logical step in Eric’s career” and is described as “rooted firmly in the blues.”
That it is, and there is no question that Eric Gales is an immensely talented blues-rock guitarist—his leads range from simply scorching to deeply expressive and his seemingly ingrained feel for melodic rock phrasing and bluesy crunch are amply supported by the endless vocabulary of licks in his palette. Even so, though full of many nice moments, The Story of My Life displays the talent of an artist who has yet to fulfill his potential. Here I think we must turn to the Hendrix comparison both to challenge it and to investigate where Gales might go next on his musical journey. Warning: The following several paragraphs will depart a bit from the standard review, and may begin to remind you of a personal letter to Gales himself (written by a well-meaning—and critical—friend).
Other than the barely skin-deep features listed above (as a reminder—African American upside-down, left-handed guitar virtuoso fielding a hard-driving musical mixture of blues and rock) there is very little in terms of actual performance style that supports the comparison when you dig a bit deeper. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I hear most of this Hendrix-like stuff as surface. This is true even of Gales’ strongest ability—his leads, which tend much more toward a blues-centered idiom than Hendrix’s ever did (especially on this album). But where the comparison most boldly dissolves is in listening to their divergent approaches to the rhythm/lead dichotomy and songwriting. The Story of My Life is one hard-driving blues-rock album, but it is also relentlessly so. There is very little to release one from Gales’ very sterile and repetitive rhythm playing, and so it is difficult to listen to for long stretches. One of the aspects of Hendrix’s playing that made him so distinctive was the immense and complex dynamic range of his songwriting and water-color-like blurring of the lines between lead and rhythm on a single instrument. Gales needs to delve into this division, and explore the pleasures of rhythmic interplay and in-betweenness beyond the pound-and-groove backing track aesthetic captured here. He also needs to delve into the territory of lyric composition. I agree with other reviewers that the vocals could use some polish (so could Hendrix’s), but if Gales were delivering more inventive verses, this wouldn’t trouble me at all.
Gales could breathe more life into his rhythm and, more broadly, his tunes by applying the same approach he used in developing his virtuosic lead palette. By attending to these dimensions of the legend with which he is so often compared, Gales could fulfill the potential that is so obviously already there by doing it in his own distinctive way. He’s already got an interesting original sound upon which to base this journey—I would actually describe it as “riff-based rock of Cream and Led Zeppelin, funneled through an early 1990s Seattle grunge styling, with a scorching blues-rock roots dressing/icing”. (I don’t expect anyone to cut and paste that one).
The letter ends here; now on to those nice moments I mentioned. There are some real hooky tunes here—check out “The Sound of the Electric Guitar”, which is just delicious. “I Ain’t No Shrink” is straight up and bluesy, as is so much of the album; I love the perfectly-placed back-up vocals on the choruses. “Very Educated” and “Cut and Run” are stuffed with some of the best shredding on the album. “Red, White and Blues” begins with a slight nod to Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” but immediately evolves into a distortion-soaked grungy riff blending smoothly into a soft acoustic guitar arpeggio tune. Could be a Top 40 hit (but richly and intelligently textured—no offense to mainstream pop fans). I agree with other reviewers that the title of this tune is cheesy, but it’s a great song (with one exception—the brittle tone on the acoustic guitar solo, which sounds like it was recorded directly into the board—the jam-out at the end and distorted outro solo make up for it, though). This tune is a nice release from the frenetic energy of most of the rest of the album. “You Ain’t the Boss of Me” is a wonderfully slow blues with some inventively shimmering clean guitar chording to backup. It is dynamically interesting, and definitely stands out above most of the other tunes. The Story of My Life ends with a couple of bonus tracks, one of which, “You Don’t Move Me,” finally allows drummer Jeremy Colson and Steve Evans some expressive freedom to really show their chops – and both are solid players in their own right.
To summarize and end, The Story of My Life features the brilliant lead playing of Eric Gales, a virtuosic guitarist who could well be on his way to attaining a more elusive, and yet potentially worthy goal: virtuosic musician. Good luck, Eric, and in the meantime, when I want some down-home shredding and hard driving rock and blues for the car ride home, I know where to go!
Encouraged by the warm reception received by previous releases in its classics series, Smithsonian has returned to its vaults to compile and release Classic Piano Blues from Smithsonian Folkways. Intended as an introduction to both blues piano and the recording work of Folkways’ founder, Moses Asch, Jeff Place and Richard Burgess have selected twenty representative performances by legendary artists including Memphis Slim, Speckled Red, Champion Jack Dupree, Huddie Ledbetter, and Victoria Spivey.
True to the Folkways tradition, the audio content is supported by extensive liner notes. The accompanying booklet begins by presenting a history of blues piano combined with a discussion of Asch’s role in recording a number of legendary artists. Focusing on the rise of blues pianists from the rough environments of nightclubs, juke joints, and gambling houses, Jeff Place’s brief history makes for a light and interesting reading. Although the details will probably be familiar to well-established blues piano fans, the essay will function as a welcome introduction for newcomers to the genre.
In addition to an overarching historical background, the booklet also provides approximately a page worth of notes for each CD track. Although these notes primarily consist of biographical information on the artists, they occasionally include information on the recording session or supplemental photographs. For those who find themselves hooked on a particular artist or on the blues in general, the booklet provides a brief biography and a suggested listening list-although the latter is comprised entirely of Smithsonian Folkways releases.
One of the CDs biggest weaknesses, and one acknowledged by Place in the liner notes, stems from the creators’ self-imposed restriction to the work of Moses Asch. Although the selections are representative of Asch’s recordings, Asch’s recordings are not fully representative of blues piano. Asch made the bulk of his recordings in the 1960s and so pre-and early post-World War I blues are sorely underrepresented. There are, however, three tracks recorded in the 1940s by Mead “Lux” Lewis, Huddie Ledbetter, and James P. Johnson. Additionally, Asch primarily recorded northern artists so many southern artists and genres will be conspicuously absent. This is not to suggest that the value of the CD is diminished by these limitations, but that the user may need to seek out supplemental materials depending on his or her needs.
Diehard blues collectors may find this particular CD a bit redundant, particularly since it primarily consists of recordings originally released in the 60s and 90s. There are, however, a few nice surprises such as a previously unreleased recording of Big Chief Ellis, John Cephas, and Phil Wiggins performing “Dices Blues” at the 1976 Smithsonian Festival. The sound quality of the CD is also quite good. Even the reissues of the 78rpm discs originally released in the 40s have retained their warmth and clarity despite a noticeable reduction in surface noise. The main nasty audio surprise is that the end of Track 6 – “Medium Blues,” performed by Meade “Lux” Lewis – is clipped off. Given the sonic quality of the rest of the CD, however, this may represent one of Asch’s idiosyncratic recording decisions as opposed to a fault of the current producers.
If you teach a course in American music, manage the audio collection for your library, or just want to learn about the blues, Classic Piano Bluesfrom Smithsonian Folkways will make a valuable addition to your collection. The selected artists and pieces are truly classics and Place’s writing style should be easily accessible to high school students without feeling overly simplistic to older readers. Even the blues collector who has everything might want to take a look. Whether vinyl sounds better than dye and plastic may remain controversial, but your favorite blues LPs will never fit in your car’s CD player.
The guitar and harmonica pairing of John Cephas (guitar) and Phil Wiggins (harmonica) is a sound familiar to fans of the great Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, but these days the blues stylings of the Piedmont region (the Appalachian foothills that run from Richmond to Atlanta) get less attention than the electrified virtuosity of Chicago blues players, or the so-called “authentic” allure of Delta Blues players. This could be because Piedmont Blues doesn’t always sound like “the blues.” Sometimes it sounds like country, other times like ragtime, and sometimes like folk balladry, and that’s precisely what makes Richmond Blues so much fun to listen to.
The diversity of sound is not a novelty, nor is it extreme, and a thorough listening will ground the sound of the record in the blues for sure: the blue notes on the guitar, the wailing bends on the harmonica, and AAB blues structure of many of the songs, and the overall down and out theme reminds the listener that this music was born from hard times, but played to ease them. Built around Cephas’s finger picked acoustic guitar and singing, accentuated by a second “voice” of Wiggins’s harp, Richmond Blues rolls along from the opening title track, through blues classic “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” to the romp “Step It Up and Go,” all the while keeping your foot tapping. In addition to the up-tempo stomps, they slow it down for the plaintive, “Prison Bound Blues,” and a take on the classic “Careless Love” that may break your heart.
Cephas and Wiggins, who have been playing music since they were children, and playing together since the late 1970s, have been a mainstay in the Virginia/D.C. area for years, and have had great exposure at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington. This latest release, their 14th together but the first for Smithsonian Folkways, captures the live spirit that makes you wish you had run across these master musicians busking on the street corners. As described by their long time producer Joe Wilson as “urban acoustic blues,” their music is at once tradition, and thoroughly modern.
Richmond Blues is released through Smithsonian Folkways as part of their new African American Legacy Series, an effort in anticipation of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and shows great promise for future releases of master musicians that exemplify styles and traditions not always recognized by less sophisticated and informed labels. Liner notes are provided by scholar and writer Barry Lee Pearson, whose book Virginia Piedmont Blues chronicled Phil Cephas in great detail. The notes provide information about the performers, their history of learning and playing music, as well as a brief but well written history of the Piedmont Blues tradition. In addition, each track is given a short biography as to who played it before, how it was played, and how it fits into Cephas and Wiggins’ repertoire. As a nice bonus for musicians listening, it also indicated what key each song is played in.
Richmond Blues is a rare treat, and one that transcends the dedicated blues fan-base and could appeal to a great variety of roots music fans, without in any way compromising the music. It’s unfortunate that regional styles like this, played by working musicians are often relegated to the small labels that need some detective work to find. Smithsonian Folkways has once again offered music the broader public might not otherwise hear (like they did with Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, as well as countless others) and should be commended for it.
“We got heavily into the blues – Chicago blues particularly because every major, modern blues artist was coming out of Chicago. . . we weren’t writing our own songs then. We were just playing mostly blues & rock ‘n roll-Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters stuff.” – Keith Richards
“We used to watch Chuck Berry films over and over and over to see how he would play certain licks. Keith [Richards] and I would go to the cinema like 6 or 9 times just to see the Chuck Berry section. . . to see how he put his hands on the guitar, and how he played this part and this solo.” – Mick Jagger
The Blues Roots of the Rolling Stones is Michael Hendon’s valiant effort to bring together the most formative blues and rock influences on the members of this seminal rock band onto a single disk for Snapper Music’s Complete Blues series. Included among them are, of course, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, and Bo Diddley, but also Buddy Holly, Slim Harpo, B.B. King, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell, and Robert Wilkins.
Far from a smattering of well-known singles from these (mostly) heavily-compiled artists, Hendon’s liner notes make clear that the songs selected for this compilation were chosen carefully. Throughout, Hendon expends great effort to explicitly connect each song to the Stones and thus support the reason for its inclusion – usually either because the Stones frequently performed and/or recorded the song or because it is emblematic of the sound of a particular artist that was an important influence on the band.
Appropriately enough, the disk opens with Muddy Waters’ “Rolling Stone” and closes with another of his classics – “I Want to be Loved” (a version of which appeared as the B side of the Stones’ first single). The songs of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley formed over half of the Stones’ early set lists, and Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” was also featured on their third album (The Rolling Stones, Now!, 1965). Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” was featured on the Stones’ first album (England’s Newest Hit Makers, 1964) as was Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do.” In addition to this more urban-centered blues/rock spread, I especially like the attention paid on this compilation to the Delta/country blues influence on the Stones’ sound. One of the highlights in that regard is Robert Wilkins’ crackling 1928 recording “Rolling Stone – Part 1.”
Though Stones enthusiasts will undoubtedly notice omissions on The Blues Roots of the Rolling Stones, I think it is a perfect starting point for those who wish to trace the British blues explosion of the early 1960s back to the sounds that inspired it.
Chris Barber is not a household name in the United States blues scene, but he was an incredibly influential figure in Britain’s popular music scene in the 1950s and continues today to be an active performer and bandleader. Barber, a jazz trombonist, was inspired by the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band to form his first Barber New Orleans Band in 1949 at the age of nineteen. A steadfast traditionalist in that sub-genre of jazz, Barber also developed a strong interest in the blues. He thus went to great effort, particularly between the late 1950s and mid-60s, to bring a number of legendary blues performers from the United States to Britain to collaborate in recordings and live concerts with his band.
This latest release from the new British-based Blues Legacy label is framed as “Lost & Found,” an endlessly compelling trope for traditional music of any kind (but particularly, it seems, for the blues); it is the musical equivalent of discovering hidden treasure. Sometimes this is the real deal, however, and sometimes it is fool’s gold (or at least somebody else’s). Thankfully, ‘Lost & Found’ is the former. As is the mandate of liner notes in this ilk, they lay out the story of discovery: Chris Barber came across some old ¼” magnetic tapes that he had believed were lost or erased when he was shipping one of his American cars from storage for restoration. He dug up a number of these recordings, and thus was born the Chris Barber Presents The Blues Legacy ‘Lost & Found’ series, released now on three separate CDs.
A wide variety of influential blues figures are prominently featured on the CDs. Volume 1 (23 tracks) features Sister Rosetta Tharpe with The Chris Barber Band on tracks 1-10 (1957) and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee on tracks 11-23 (1958). Volume 2 (23 tracks) features Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee alone and with The Chris Barber Band & Ottilie Patterson on tracks 2-6 (1958), Muddy Waters with Otis Spann and The Chris Barber Band on tracks 8-17 (1958), Champion Jack Dupree with The Chris Barber Band on tracks 19-21 (1959) and Louis Jordan with The Chris Barber Band and Ottilie Patterson on track 23 (1962). Volume 3 (29 tracks) features Sonny Boy Williamson with The Chris Barber Band on track 2, and tracks 4-13 (1964), Jimmy Witherspoon with The Chris Barber Band, Humphrey Lyttelton, and Ronnie Scott on tracks 15-17 (1964), Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin and The Chris Barber Band on tracks 19, 21, and 23-24 (1964) and Jimmy Witherspoon with The Chris Barber Band on tracks 25-29 (1980).
I think it is necessary for recordings presented as historically important to provide at least brief notes on the time period referenced in the liner notes. The liner notes for all three ‘Lost & Found’ CDs do not provide this bigger picture. While some of this is embedded, the notes are really more a collection of fragmented anecdotes by Barber about the specific performances featured on the CDs. For this reason, I will first offer some context here before moving onto the performances themselves.
At a time of economic hardship (an aftermath of post-WWII reconstruction), British youth became fascinated with the media exports of the booming U.S. economy, including early rock and roll. Barber’s interest in a more traditional style of jazz was a part of his interest in the preservation of historical sounds more generally as well as jazz and its roots more specifically. This personal drive developed into a strong interest in blues and blues-based music from the United States, and in pursuit of his passion, Barber exposed the blues to countless others by organizing concert tours in Britain with many of its most talented artists. Today he stands as a pivotal figure in launching the British blues subculture that quickly blossomed into a historical movement. British blues and the rock that grew out of it forever changed the face of popular music in the United States, Britain, and the all over the world.
So the recordings on these CDs are of immense historical significance – reason alone, for some perhaps, to pick them up – but they are certainly not representative of what was happening more broadly, neither what came before nor after. This is because these CDs bring together an unusual and largely unprecedented mix of performances. Though sometimes performing by themselves, the various blues artists featured here are usually backed by The Chris Barber Band’s tight New Orleans jazz sound! This collaboration is always interesting, and is sometimes even riveting, intense, and powerful – as when Sister Rosetta Tharpe leads Barber’s band on “When the Saints Go Marching In” on Volume 1 (but remember, that is standard rep for New Orleans jazz) or Louis Jordan’s single appearance on the recordings with Ottilie Patterson and the rest of the band on “T’aint Nobody’s Business” on Volume 2. It is, however, at other times jarring, incompatible, and incomprehensible – take Howlin’ Wolf’s rendition of “Howlin’ for My Baby” with Hubert Sumlin and the band or Sonny Boy Williamson with Ottilie Patterson and the band on “This Little Light of Mine” (both on Volume 3).
These CDs, for the most part (sometimes voices are much too low compared to the band, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s guitar is inaudible on her solo tracks) sound fantastic. The historically-minded will enjoy their significance and the eclectic-minded will probably get a kick out of the unusual genre-mashing going on here (as I did); for the die-hard blues fans, however, better and more “bluesy” recordings exist for most of the artists featured.
Title: Manchester Free Trade Hall 1964
Artist: Reverend Gary Davis
Label: Document
Catalog No.: DOCD 32-20-14
Date: 2007
In Reverend Gary Davis we had one of the best examples of a musician who carefully navigated the terrain between sacred and secular musics, causing intersections not often heard. In the newly released Manchester Free Trade Hall 1964 from Document Records, we hear Davis performing as part of the “Gospel and Blues Caravan” touring throughout Europe, on a night that captures an excellent showman in top form.
Though the image of a blind guitar player adheres more to blues mythology than gospel, Davis performs four gospel songs on his trademark Gibson Jumbo-200 with natural ease, as if they were intended for the acoustic guitar. One of his trademark songs, “If I Had My Way,” finds Davis shouting his praise while his tremendous finger picking runs up and down the fretboard, oscillating between stellar bass runs and high register licks responding to his vocal lines. “The Sun is Going Down” brings Davis’s long time friend Sonny Terry along on harmonica, and the two sound majestic together, every bit as tight as Terry’s work with Brownie McGhee. Equally impressive is Davis’s “Coon Hunt,” a harmonica instrumental based on Terry’s “Fox Chase,” which gives further evidence of Davis’s wide and varied musical ability.
To cap things off, Davis ends with Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” showcasing his ragtime finger picking chops. Davis complicates the standard repertoire of a bluesman, moving not only between sacred and secular songs, but also with a double dose of ragtime in “Maple Leaf Rag,” and the impressive instrumental “Cincinnati Flow Rag.” According to the liner notes penned by Bob Grooms, Davis also excelled at the piano and banjo, and based on the virtuosic display heard here, one longs to hear what he might have had to offer on those instruments.
The few drawbacks of the album have nothing to do with Davis, but with the remastering of the tracks, which are inexplicably inconsistent. Some sound intimate and clear while others sound like bootlegs made from the audience. The loud applause in between takes is disruptive in its length and volume. This is surprising from Document, which generally excels at remastering historical material. The liner notes are adequate but mostly a song-by-song explication as to where each fits within Davis’s larger performing repertoire, as well as some general history as to Davis’s activities in Europe in the 1960s. The photos are minimal and offer only two shots of Davis backstage, so one never gets a visual sense of Manchester Free Trade Hall. Nonetheless, none of this undermines the astounding performance given that May night in 1964, where it became quite obvious that American blues and gospel had become transnational musics.
In 1993 Alan Lomax published his book The Land Where the Blues Began, to great popular and critical acclaim. The book told the story of his collecting adventures in the Mississippi Delta fifty years earlier, “discovering” and recording artists such as Son House, Muddy Waters, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards. In their co-edited book Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942, Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov detail the larger picture of the same collecting trips made by Lomax in the early 1940s by including the equally large contributions of Fisk University scholars (a collaboration which was almost completely obfuscated in The Land Where the Blues Began) and paying particular attention to the work of John Wesley Work, III. With the release of the CD John Work, III: Recording Black Culture, we now have the music to match the text of Lost Delta Found (through it’s not a companion piece), along with greater evidence of the variety of black musical culture in the early part of the twentieth century.
Recording Black Culture separates its14 tracks into six categories: Social Songs (fiddle and banjo tunes), The Quartets, Work Song, Congregational Singing, Blues, and Colored Sacred Harp (shape note congregational singing). On display here are both secular and sacred musics, though the liner notes indicate Work was mostly interested in secular “folk” musics. The wide range of music that is offered was almost entirely recorded before Work and his Fisk colleagues joined forces with Lomax and the Library of Congress for the trip to the delta. Work’s recordings were done in and around Nashville Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi. Many of the recordings have poor fidelity (even for historical recordings) and lend some insight as to why Fisk may have contacted the Library of Congress about a joint venture into the Delta: they wanted the more sophisticated equipment used by Lomax. In this regard Work was right, the tracks that surfaced later in Lomax’s collections are much higher in fidelity (e.g., The Land Where the Blues Began Rounder CD) and Work’s recordings are surely more interesting to a scholar than to most casual listeners.
Of the highest fidelity and given five tracks on the compilation are songs of The Quartets, including, with an egalitarian sprite, the Holloway High School Quartet, The Fairfield Four, The Heavenly Gate Quartet (a group of Work’s friends who sang together), and two unnamed groups. Here we have vocal harmony groups singing religious music in jubilee style with tight vocal parts and pulsating rhythms. The intimate sound of the quartets, specifically on the two tracks of the Heavenly Gate Quartet, provide great examples of vernacular presentations of popular stylings of the day, including “If I Had My Way.” Other tracks on the album, such as the congregational version of “Amazing Grace,” are harder to hear and are best left for academic scrutiny rather than pleasure listening. Many of these recordings are of particular interest because of their rarity; for example, the only known recording of blues street musician Joe Holmes singing “Ain’t Gonna Drink No Mo’,” as well as the ulta-rare recordings of fiddle and banjo players Ned Frazier and Frank Patterson that lead off the compilation.
The CD is packaged with comprehensive liner notes written by Bruce Nemerov and aided by archival photos of the people, places, equipment, and songbooks used during this era. Though the recording quality lacks the fidelity of other field collections of the time, and the repertoire is perhaps too wide ranging for some tastes, the packaging and release of this material (a joint effort between local, state, and federal arts agencies) offers further proof of what many musicians have known for years, that rural black music is not, and was never solely the blues.
Looking backward from 2008, it is possible to believe for an instant that Chuck Berry’s recordings were standard rock and roll fare. When “Maybellene” hit the airwaves in July of 1955, however, it marked a defining moment in the evolution of rock, a point that would so dramatically shape its course that music from that time can seem self-evident today – as if to say, “yes, rock does this and rock does that, just as it always has.” But when Berry began recording, the guitar did not so completely dominate the genre – it was only through the work of seminal figures like Berry that it would eventually come to replace the roles formerly filled by the piano and saxophone. Not only did Berry invent a distinctive guitar style that would become standard rock technique, however – he was also an expressive singer, a songwriter whose lyrics captured the ambitions and desires of 1950s middle-class America, and a consummate showman. In the early days of rock, when these tasks might be divided among many people, Chuck Berry did it all.
We can listen to the beginnings of this story on Hip-O Select’s recent 4-CD box set Johnny B. Goode: His Complete ‘50s Chess Recordings, produced by Andy McKaie, compiled by Andy McKaie and Fred Rothwell, and digitally remastered by Erick Labson. McKaie and Rothwell dove deep into the Chess vault to unearth 103 Berry tracks that span the years 1955-59, and in addition to immortal hits like “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and “Johnny B. Goode,” the 4-CD set includes B-sides of singles, alternate recordings that originally appeared on foreign releases, and even 15 previously unreleased tracks. But when Berry’s stint with Chess stretched through 1974, why stop at 1959? Well, according to Rothwell, the original plan was to compile a 14 CD box set of all of Berry’s Chess and Mercury recordings from the mid-fifties until he finally left Chess in 1974. Unfortunately, however, that project was vetoed by the bigwigs at Universal and the present set was devised as an acceptable compromise. Johnny B. Goode was apparently released in a limited edition set of 5000, and if it sells well the plan is to compile a follow-up set of ’60s recordings up to Berry’s departure from Chess to Mercury in 1966.
Despite its oddly generic title, the documentation and format of Johnny B. Goode is clearly intended to appeal to a collectors/aficionados market. All tunes are arranged in chronological order on the set, leading to such juxtapositions as 5 back-to-back versions of “Sweet Little Sixteen” (out of 13 that Rothwell reviewed) and sets of 2 or 3 takes of many others. This makes listening to the set more than a little overwhelming for anyone but the most hardcore collectors. Collectors will eat it up, however, and will appreciate the insert booklet as well. Fred Rothwell, who is also the author of Long Distance Information: Chuck Berry’s Recorded Legacy, wrote 13 pages of liner notes highlighting the significance of Berry’s innovative work and this is followed by a complete track listing with accompanying musicians, songwriter, and Chess catalog numbers provided for each. The booklet ends with a singles discography detailing release dates and Billboard chart information for each tune.
The chronological arrangement overall is an effective way to organize these tunes, because it takes the ear on a musical journey into and through the 1940s swing; boogie woogie piano; the blues of T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James; and the country music Chuck Berry listened to growing up in St. Louis. These influences came together to form the high-energy, guitar-driven, blues-based bedrock of Berry’s individual style, which, in turn, became recognizably and fundamentally rock and roll. Beginning with the T-Bone Walker-derived riff that opens the driving Maybellene, with its characteristic solo guitar bends and quick-fire diads, we are lead through all the chart hits and well-known favorites as well as those of a different hue, including the dark and spooky “Down Bound Train” on disk 1; instrumentals like Berry’s hoppin’ rendition of “How High the Moon” from disk 2; the extended (about 11′ apiece) “Long Fast Jam” and “Long Slow Jam” from disk 3; and the Latin-inflected “That’s My Desire” from disk 4. A special mention goes to Johnnie Johnson, whose brilliantly complementary piano playing appears on most of these recordings.
Check out Johnny B. Goode: His Complete ‘50s Chess Recordings for a comprehensive Chuck Berry introductory experience and a widely-ranging glimpse into the roots of Rock, or buy a greatest-hits compilation if all the multiple takes turn you off.
Title: Roamin’ and Ramblin’
Artist: Honeyboy Edwards
Label: Earwig
Catalog No.: CD 4953
Date: 2008
That bluesman David “Honeyboy” Edwards is still recording at age 93 may be in part because he got a rather late start. Born in 1915, Edwards played and toured with such blues luminaries as Tommy Johnson, Big Joe Williams, and the mythical Robert Johnson in the 1920s and 30s. But he wasn’t recorded until 1942 when Library of Congress folklorist/archivist Alan Lomax and Fisk University scholars John Work, Lewis Jones, and Samuel Adams ventured to Coahoma County, Mississippi to document music and folklife. Edwards was one of several musicians recorded for the first time in those sessions, along with fellow guitar players Son House and Muddy Waters. These were the same sessions that Lomax would write about nearly fifty years later in The Land Where the Blues Began. Sadly, those recordings were shelved at the time and only released years later.
While Lomax’s account is both myopic and ethically dubious (the Fisk scholars receive scant mention in his book, leading some readers to believe he did it all alone), there is something to be said for Edwards being at the beginning of The Blues. While “blues tunes” existed in various repertoires, the image of the guitar wielding, twelve-bar moaning bluesman has a solid lineage in Edwards. His latest recording Roamin’ and Ramblin’, his fourth for Chicago’s Earwig label, casts Edwards in a familiar light. Guitar/harmonica duos comprise most of the album, with a few solo tracks and a few backed by washboard and drums. Edwards himself (like his Coahoma neighbor Muddy Waters) embodies the general shift in the Blues from the Delta upriver to Chicago, but his style is not transformed clearly as Delta blues and Chicago blues. He still plays a “downhome” style, sometimes electrified, and the harmonica parts are clear proof of both his love and appreciation for Memphis and Chicago influences on the tradition.
Here Edwards is helped out by a host of different harp players, including Bobby Rush, Walter Horton, Michael Frank (also his agent and producer), Billy Branch, and Johnny “Yard Dog” Jones. If those names aren’t familiar it is probably because they’ve suffered the same delay in fame Edwards did, but this is also a sign that Roamin’ and Ramblin’ is record for a real blues fan, not a Time-Life musical tourist.
Most of the tracks were recorded in fall of 2007, but they are interspersed with recordings from the Coahoma County sessions in 1942 as well as Chicago sessions from the mid-70s. Also included are bits of conversation between Edwards and various players on the sessions, recalling old friends, and how to make a blues shuffle from a slow rhythm, which add a familiar, cozy feeling to the record.
Edwards may be old, but he’s no dinosaur. While some might argue that this album is more of the same old thing, the blues fans who know the history, hear the changes, and see the continuity will appreciate the clear artistry which is deployed in an ever subtly changing form.
Colorado isn’t the first state you probably think of as a center for the blues. Perhaps that outsider status is what allows Otis Taylor to construct his own framework of the genre. Taylor, who currently resides in Boulder, has worked out of Colorado for years. Though he took a hiatus from music making in 1977 to deal in antiques, he began playing again in 1995 and released the acclaimed album Blue-Eyed Monster in 1997. Taylor’s style has never been orthodox, nor has it adhered to a site-specific sound such as Delta blues, Memphis blues, or Chicago blues, yet he’s incorporated elements of each in the past. His latest release, Recapturing the Banjo, maps similar outsider space, although this time it’s more historical than spatial.
Recapturing the Banjo is undoubtedly Taylor’s project, but more accurately he leads a dream team of contemporary blues musicians, each with strong affiliations to traditional forms. Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb’ Mo’, and Don Vappie all contribute substantially through combinations of picking, singing, and songwriting. The roster of musicians and their diverse contributions render the idea of a uniform “black” way to play the banjo dead on arrival.
The banjo has an uncomfortable but nonetheless essential role in African-American music, yet undoubtedly it has become more synonymous with white vernacular forms such as old-time and bluegrass music. The prototype came from West Africa on slave ships and evolved from such instruments as the xalam and akonting, reflecting such “melting-pot” concepts in its variations. Recapturing the Banjo showcases not only those variations of instrumentation but of playing styles, from Guy Davis’ percussive, thumb-heavy clawhammer on “Little Liza Jane,” to Don Vappie’s jazzy rhythms played on the tenor banjo in “Les Ognons.”
The song writing and selection reflect a frank and concerned role of African-American experiences. While Taylor’s own writing tends towards the dark side, including songs about a Klan lynching, “shot ‘em down” ballads, and white indifference to black suffering, the disc also includes up-tempo songs such as Gus Cannon’s seminal “Walk Right In” (made famous by the all white, folk-pop, sans-banjo trio The Rooftop Singers), the Creole children’s song “Les Ognons,” and the brooding affirmation of Keb’ Mo’s “The Way It Goes.”
Though there is much to learn here (the liner notes are complete with a bibliography and discography providing a more detailed history of black banjo music), the sound and feel of the music is anything but academic. Taylor refuses to substitute pedagogy for groove, and the album cranks along with a blend of old-time rollicking tunes and swampy electric guitar blues accented by the ever-present banjo. Taylor’s iconoclastic style is on full display here and it’s a shame he isn’t better known outside of blues circles, since his taste is so wide-ranging, never solidly fitting into genre categories, but always negotiating between them.
Editor’s note: Smithsonian Folkways has received many requests from radio stations for re-servicing Black Banjo Songsters so they can pair it up with Otis Taylor’s CD on their respective radio shows. We thought we’d do the same, just in case you missed this CD when it was originally released back in 1998.
Otis Taylor’s recent release, Recapturing the Banjo, is not only an album, but a statement of musical lineage. And if the banjo is to be “recaptured,” it must be asked who is doing the recapturing: blues players or black players? The banjo has a clear history traceable to Africa via slaves in the American South back through the Middle Passage. Long before anyone heard the lighting-fast, three-finger picking of Earl Scruggs, black musicians had already developed styles of banjo playing quite different from Scruggs speedy arpeggios. There are more recordings of these early banjo styles than most casual listeners might suspect.
One of the seminal collections is the venerable Smithsonian Folkways 1998 release Black Banjo Songsters, which collects thirty-two recordings of banjo songs from North Carolina and Virginia. Most of these songs were recorded in the 1970s or later, and mostly by musicians in the waning years of life. This led to the common conclusion that banjo music in black communities was a dying art form. Whether or not the tradition was dying is irrelevant at this point, because it’s clearly not dead. If we were to allow the commercial recording industry to proclaim what is alive and what is dead, we’d be privy only to a thin slice of the various music that continues to thrive outside the umbrella of commercial acceptance. In many ways this is the principle that has led Smithsonian Folkways to its unparalled success.
The songs on Black Banjo Songsters are anything but commercial and would most likely be of little interest to those who are unaccustomed to the rough hewn sound of field recordings, where pitch correction and over-dubbing are foreign concepts. Black Banjo Songsters is something of an educational project, shedding light on the various aspects of black banjo stylings including percussive claw hammer style as well as the two-fingers, up-picking “complementing” style. The extensive liner notes by banjo scholar Cece Conway and Scott Odell detail the specifics of these different styles.
The collection gives credibility to the diversity of approaches by black players. Just as white players such as Roscoe Holcomb, Earl Scruggs and Bela Fleck found individual sounds with the instrument, familiar songs such as “Coo Coo,” “John Henry,” and “Old Corn Liquor” get individual treatment by lesser known players such as Dink Roberts, Odell Thompson, and John Snipes.
But the education aside, the music is rich and welcoming, showcasing first class talent, many of whom were never offered recording gigs because they didn’t play the one of two genres that fit neatly on “race records.” Most importantly, it reminds us of what is lost when the missing piece of the puzzle goes unnoticed for too long.
“Do you really want to hear some blues that you don’t hear much about anymore? Well, watch this shit!”
Buddy Guy coaxes the audience to go along with him and Junior Wells way down deep, and way back to the rawest roots of urban blues in a tribute to Muddy Waters. The tune begins with silence – the room is dead. And you suddenly realize that Guy is plucking out barely audible chordal accompaniment on his guitar, anticipating Wells’ murderously bittersweet harmonica bends and subtle lines. They slink along together as the rest of the band comes in to offer support. Wells’ voice emerges quietly, but right from the beginning it seems to traverse the full range of a blues voice, as if multiple bluesmen were all being channeled at once – we get soft and sweetly melancholy, gut-wrenching scoops, growls, shouts and all the rest you can imagine. As Wells gets louder, Guy ripples along just beneath with a crazy string of electric guitar vibrato-laden bends. The two continue throughout to act as three voices in a contemplative conversation – Guys’ guitar, and both Wells’ versatile voice and stunning ultra treble-range harmonica licks. But it’s not all reverie – there is a good bit of revelry, too, and classic showmanship (especially from Guy) as the two joke back and forth, alternately breaking the mood and bringing it back when they’re ready.
In Junior Wells: Live at Nightstage, part of Image Entertainment’s “Blues Legends” series, producer and director John McDermott has captured a rich, 71 – minute moment in the long-time collaboration of two of contemporary blues’ most talented performers. Wells, born as Amos Blakemore, grew up in the heart of the Memphis blues scene. He earned his first claim to fame in 1952 when Wells replaced Little Walter in Muddy Waters’ band. Buddy Guy got the attention of many more mainstream artists during his early stint as a session guitarist at Chess, and his friendship with Wells began in 1958 during his tenure at the 708 club. Thought the two toured together regularly for 30 years, most of their June 15, 1986 performance at Nightstage in Cambridge, MA had never been previously released before this DVD.
Live at Nightstage is a raw presentation of a raw musical form. There is no post-processing of the sound from the stage, and the video quality is rather poor by today’s standards – but remember, this was 1986. The backing band kicks off the show with the rolling groove of (but unfortunately we are not told anywhere who these people are). Guy creeps onto stage for a straight-up slinky guitar solo in “Crazy About You” and his frenetic bursts of distorted lead guitar wander in and outside of the musical lines on “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” You sometimes find yourself wondering if he’ll ever get back – but he does, of course. Wells comes in with crystal harmonica arpeggios and a rumbling, growling vocal on “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.” The two are together for the remainder of the disk, which includes “Tribute to Muddy Waters,” “Trouble No More,” Little Walter’s “Juke,” Sonny Boy Williamson’s “My Younger Days,” “Got My Mojo Workin’.” They finish the Nightstage performance off with a tribute to James Brown on “Super Bad,” and “I Got You (I Feel Good).” Special features include the additional performances of “Little By Little,” and “Better Than I Love Myself” (which, for some reason, are separated out from the rest of Live at Nightstage) and Don Wilcock’s backstage interview with Wells and Guy from March 11, 1989 at The Channel in Boston. McDermott’s 6 pages of liner notes also lays out the history of the Guy and Wells story.
I think whenever two great artists collaborate, especially for years at a time, and their work is presented with as little tampering is possible, it is worth a listen. As McDermott describes, Wells and Guy parted ways shortly after this performance; subsequently, Junior continued to tour and record until his death in January 1998 and Guy went on to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. Nevertheless, in Live At Nightstage we have the vibrant mark of a moment, and through it the confluence of two monumental talents lingers on.
For further information:
Blues in the Mississippi Night
A reissue of Alan Lomax’s historic 1947 recording of performances by Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson (a major influence on Junior Wells) as well as their 3-way conversation about the origin of the blues and recollections of racial injustices in the pre-civil rights South
Hoodoo Man Blues
Wells’ landmark 1965 album featuring Buddy Guy on guitar
Ramblin’ on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues, is the second installment in the University of Illinois Press’s new African American Music in Global Perspective series, co-edited by Portia K. Maultsby and Mellonee V. Burnim in affiliation with the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University. The first installment, published in 2007 and co-edited by Eileen M. Hayes and Linda F. Williams, was titled Black Women and Music: More than the Blues. This latest addition to the series is edited by eminent blues scholar and artist David Evans. Evans has been researching and performing the blues for nearly 50 years, and is thus well-positioned to analytically unite new perspectives on the genre and frame them in relation to older treatments.
Evans writes that “the purpose of the present collection of essays is to offer new perspective on the blues by exploring previously neglected aspects, reinterpreting familiar material, conducting broad and more scientific surveys, and exploring specific blues performances in great depth and detail” (3). In accomplishing this purpose, Evans expanded upon the four essays in this collection that were originally published in the journal American Music by drawing upon an international and interdisciplinary range of contributions. As Evans describes, “these essays are by well-established blues writers, distinguished scholars in other fields of music, and several newly emerging writers. The authors represent the diversity of backgrounds that have contributed to blues scholarship over the years: folklorists, musicologists, anthropologists, musicians, fans, and collectors. Three of them are based outside of the United States, reflecting the internationalization of blues music and blues research in recent decades. The author’s approaches to the blues include fieldwork and other direct encounters, analysis of recordings, and research in the printed literature. Each of the essays is the product of careful and wide-ranging scholarship, not a brainstorm dashed off quickly. All can serve as models for future study both of the blues and other types of music” (3).
Ramblin’ on My Mind opens with Gerhard Kubik’s essay “Bourdon, Blue Notes, and Pentatonism in the Blues: An Africanist Perspective.” This essay draws upon Kubik’s field experience in seventeen African countries and more than forty years of research on African music to trace the origins of an African-derived basis for “blue notes” and the blues scale. It is followed by Lynn Abbott’s and Doug Seroff’s “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” which explores the uncharted territory of blues in the black vaudeville theater circuit and demonstrates that blues was a cultural movement prior to 1920 and not just the creation of a handful of creative individuals. Elliot S. Hurwitt’s “Abbe Niles, Blues Advocate,” investigates the early efforts of Niles, a close friend of W.C. Handy’s, to interpret and explain this music to a particularly wide audience. In “The Hands of Blues Guitarists,” Andrew M. Cohen uses the technique of right hand thumb for time-keeping and melodic figures as a measure by which to critically examine long-held, primarily impressionistic, assumptions about regional blues styles. Evans himself offers an essay, as well: “From Bumble Bee Slim to Black Boy Shine: Nicknames of Blues Singers,” in which he uses a large sample of over three thousand blues artists to trace the meanings of their names to roots in broader African American culture (as opposed to the characteristics and experiences of individual artists). Luigi Monge’s “Preachin’ the Blues: A Textual Linguistic Analysis of Son House’s ‘Dry Spell Blues” is a penetrating study of this classic recording, revealing its true character as a sort of “blues prayer” and highlighting the sacred and secular that come together in House’s music. James Bennighof’s “Some Ramblings on Robert Johnson’s Mind: Critical Analysis and Aesthetic Value in Delta Blues” uses a blues-centered frame of analysis to explore the intricacies of Johnson’s “Rambling on My Mind.” In “‘Guess These People Wonder What I’m Singing’: Quotation and Reference in Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘St. Louis Blues,’” Katharine Cartwright shines light on Fitzgerald’s wide array of musical influences that emerge through her performance of this well-known tune. Bob Groom’s “Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: A Decade of Disillusion in Black Blues and Gospel Song” examines another important but neglected period of blues history: the decade following World War II. Ramblin’ concludes with John Minton’s “Houston Creoles and Zydeco: The Emergence of an African American Urban Popular Style,” in which he traces the origins of the genre to the Creole communities in the cities of Texas before its later surge in popularity and identification as a “Louisiana music.”
Overall, this volume asks the question, “When we want to figure out what the blues is all about, what have we forgotten?” The answers provided here by Evans and others suggest that, after sixty years of accumulated wisdom, there is still much out there we need to understand about the blues.
Florida Funk: Funk 45’s from the Alligator State(Now-Again/Stonesthrow)
This is the third compilation of regional funk from the Now-Again/Stonesthrow label. This mix of tight grooves, nasty bass lines and smoking horn sections are a great example of the finest funk that the Sunshine State produced in the late sixties and early seventies.
Free-Your-Mind: The 700 West Sessions – Amnesty (Now-Again/Stonesthrow)
Yet another gem from Now-Again/Stonesthrow, this rare find was dug up while researching the Indianapolis funk scene. Free-Your-Mind is a remarkable example of the progressive funk style reminiscent of early Funkadelic with a very heavy psychedelic drone.
War Stories – Lonnie Jordan (Fantasy Records)
This new album from founding member of the legendary group War is Lonnie Jordan’s first solo recording since 1978, and it is, as he describes, the first chapter in his “musical autobiography.” All the instruments were recorded live to tape with no samples and very few overdubs, so the grooves are fresh and shimmering. Check out Jordan’s spacey cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun.”
Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions – James Blood Ulmer (Hyena)
Ulmer’s most recent collaboration with producer and Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid (who also plays guitar on this recording) and the smokin’ Memphis Blood Blues Band. The whole album is built around a song cycle detailing the fallout from Hurrican Katrina. Ranging from deceptively light-hearted sarcasm to undisguised rage and pensive reflection, this album shows what 21st-century stories blues can tell.
Planet Earth – Prince (Artist)
Getting back to the guitar distinguishes this album from Prince’s many previous eclectic blends of pop from R&B to rock and beyond. Both smooth and heavy, soul-drenched and spectacular.
Posted by Heather O’Sullivan and Anthony Guest-Scott
Gettin’ Up documents one of the last performances by blues harmonica legend Carey Bell (1936 – May, 2007). Bell was born in Macon, Mississippi, and began playing harp at the age of eight. He eventually made his way to Chicago where he fell under the influence of harp masters Little Walter and Big Walter Horton as he began to play the club circuit. Bell went on to found quite a musical family, and several of his 15 children became blues musicians themselves. Carey Bell has been recording since 1969, and his son Lurrie, a guitar player, first appeared on one of his studio albums in 1977. The live performances featured on this disk bring the two back together to demonstrate their unusual synergy.
The disk features three different dates – Rosa’s Lounge (July 27, 2006); Buddy Guy’s Legends (October 21, 2006); and a set of intimate duets with just the two Bells recorded at Lurrie’s home (July 28, 2006). At Rosa’s they are joined by Roosevelt Purifoy (piano), Bob Stroger (bass), and Brian “BJ” Jones (drum set). At Legends the two Bells are complemented by Scott Cable (guitar), Joe Thomas (bass), and Kenny Smith (drum set).
Gettin’ Up is a remarkable collection of musical gems – every tune on the disk carries the mark of Carey’s and Lurrie’s seemingly telepathic reading of each others’ musical thoughts, backed by two stellar groups of musicians. They open the date at Rosa’s with “What My Mama Told Me,” jumping right in with Carey’s characteristic vibrato-laden harp attack and heavy chordal riffing over Lurrie’s punctuated rhythm playing, effortlessly-phrased answering leads, and conversational solos. Carey’s voice is also at its expressive peak, and is flexible enough to belt out sandpaper renditions of classic blues tunes like Little Walter’s “Last Night” as well as original tunes like his “Gettin’ Up,” (which he wrote just before the Rosa’s Lounge gig after falling and breaking his hip). Lurrie chimes in on vocals a bit, too, however, with a driving version of the classic “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and a soulful solo rendition of the gospel favorite “Stand By Me” that closes the disk. The energy of the Rosa’s and Legends dates is infectious, but the two Bells at home in Lurrie’s living room feeding off of nothing but each other’s vibes is, to me, the highlight of the film.
In Gettin’ Up, Director Tom Koester has put together a disk that both visually highlights the synchronicity of the Bells (through effective use of multiple camera angles and occasional split-screen shots of the two) and captures the vibrant context through techniques like camera cuts to the audience dancing and singing along and the signed guitars hanging on the walls of Legends. Not only does the film look great, but it sounds beautiful, to boot – it was recorded at a high res 24 bit, 96 kHz, with audio options for standard stereo, Dolby Surround, and DTS Surround playback. The difference is notable, and the instruments all sound clear and well-balanced, with spacious panning. In addition to these audio options, the disk also comes with a well-crafted insert by Bill Dahl with complete track listing, chapter markers for navigating to each tune on the disk, and special features that include an interview with Carrie and Lurrie, a detailed discography, and a preview for the Delmark DVD Tail Dragger: My Head is Bald (which is as much about the Chicago Blues club scene – and Vern’s in particular – as it is about that legendary artist and notable guests).
Gettin’ Up is a worthy tribute to the legacy of two incredible bluesmen, and will likely convince you that the Bells deserve a place among the ranks of much better-known blues artists. The audio recording is also available on CD (Delmark DE 791).
For further information:
Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories
There is no end to writing about the blues, and Chicago blues in particular, but this book by David Whiteis is one of the sources Bill Dahl used in his liner notes for Gettin’ Up.
Delmark has just released a CD of “enhanced pianola rolls” recorded in Chicago in the late 1920s by Jimmy Blythe (one of the first boogie woogie pianists) for the Capitol Music Roll Company’s Nickelodeon series. Around 1970, Paul Affeldt, publisher of Jazz Report magazine, decided to release this material for the first time on LP as part of his Euphonic Sound label (named after his favorite Scott Joplin rag). Working with collector Bill Burkhardt of Grand Rapids, Michigan (who loaned the four rare Nickelodeon rolls) and using a restored player piano, Affeldt and fellow piano roll enthusiast Ed Sprankle meticulously recorded the rolls and released them as part of a two LP set also featuring Clarence Johnson. Delmark acquired the Euphonic master tapes from Affeldt (who passed away in 2003), and has been reissuing the digitally remastered material on CDs (though several of these reissues are clearly labeled “Euphonic series” in the Delmark catalog, Messin’ Around Blues is not labeled as such- at least not on the CD).
Jimmy Blythe was born in Kentucky in 1901 and moved to Chicago as a teenager (sometime between 1915-1918), where he studied with Clarence Jones. By the early 1920s he was well established in the South Side clubs as a ragtime and boogie woogie pianist. Library of Congress copyright records show that he also composed at least 40 compositions between 1922 and 1930, including five works featured on this CD: “Steppin’ On the Gas” (1925), “Forty Blues” (1926), “My Baby” (1927), “I Won’t Give You None” (1929), and “The Folks Down-Stairs” (1930). In addition, Blythe was also extremely active as a recording artist for the Paramount, Vocalion, and Gennett labels, performing both solos and duets, and backing up musicians ranging from Ma Rainey and Blind Blake to Louis Armstrong and Johnny Dodds. His song, “Chicago Stomp,” recorded for Paramount in 1924, is generally considered to be the first recorded example of boogie woogie (according to the liner notes, though earlier examples have been cited elsewhere; see John Tennison’s excellent website on the history of boogie woogie piano). Apparently Blythe made even more piano rolls than 78s- at least 200 for Capitol and its subsidiary labels alone- and these include some of his hottest solo performances.
For those not familiar with piano rolls, there are two types: those which were arranged (i.e., punched by hand by a talented arranger), and those which were played by a pianist sitting at a special recording piano, which faithfully transferred the notes, in tempo, onto a roll. The latter technique, developed around 1915, was employed for all of the Blythe piano rolls, essentially capturing a “live” performance (though some note correcting and doctoring could still be done after the fact). These piano rolls complement Blythe’s solo recordings released on 78s (most were reissued by RST on Chronological Order Piano Solos, 1924-1931), and allow for a much broader study of the artist.
Delmark has done a superb job of remastering the tapes; in fact, its hard to believe that these are not modern recordings (hats off to Frank Himpsl, the restoration engineer). Notable tracks include “Sugar Dew Blues” (a12-bar blues solo with a walking bass), “Function Blues” (a piano duet, though the second artist was never identified), and “Black Gal Make it Thunder,” a great South Side boogie woogie number. I must point out that much of this information comes from the original LP liner notes by Ed Sprankle (sent to me by Delmark along with the CD), which are a treasure trove of information about piano rolls and early Chicago jazz. Its regrettable that Delmark didn’t reprint the notes in their entirety; the extremely brief notes by Bob Koester only paraphrase portions of Sprankle’s original text. Regardless, Messin’ Around Blues is essential for anyone interested in early ragtime and boogie woogie piano. If you purchase the CD, just try to get your hands on a copy of the original notes!
Art Rosenbaum is a painter and emeritus faculty at the University of Georgia who has dedicated the bulk of his life to collecting, documenting, recording, and preserving a vast range of American traditional music. This collection, the first of three 4-CD boxed sets to be released on co-producer Steven Lance Ledbetter’s Dust-to-Digital label, is, as Rosenbaum describes in the liner notes “only a part of the great patchwork of American folk music, to use Alan Lomax’s term – it represents where I have been, what I have heard, seen and had the opportunity and good sense to record.” Rosenbaum continues, “We call it ‘Art of Field Recording,’ not because it echoes my first name, but because it represents and presents the expressive art forms of traditional music as performed by those I have met and recorded over the years; and also because we hope our particular way of organizing, presenting, and yes, ‘packaging’ this part of America’s music will rise to the level of art, of worthy art.”
As you can probably already see, the 96-page booklet that accompanies Art of Field Recording is exceptionally detailed and thorough, and includes a Preface by Ledbetter describing the genesis of his collaboration with Rosenbaum, the story of Rosenbaum’s drive to document American traditional music, and a detailed statement about the philosophy behind the overall organization of the boxed set, the particular recordings selected for inclusion, and their relative arrangement on the disks. Much of this discussion is directed toward how Art compares with the monumental Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music. Key among the differences is that the Harry Smith anthology consists entirely of reissues of commercial 78rpm records made in the early 1920s and 30s, mostly from the American South; Art, however, consists entirely of Rosenbaum’s field recordings, based heavily in the South, but also diving into the Midwest and Northeast. The result is that all the features of performance context one can hope to capture in audio are present in Rosenbaum’s compilation – the spaces where people played, the conversations surrounding the elicitation of a tune, where someone learned this or that, dishes being scraped in the diner – this is all present in rich detail, and for the better.
The 4-CD set is organized into “Survey,” “Religious,” “Blues” and “Instrumental and Dance” disks. Every tune is accompanied by detailed notes in the booklet, including who the performers are, how Rosenbaum went about finding them, and items of interest about the pieces themselves. Each of these entries is also usually accompanied by a photograph of the performers (taken by Rosenbaum’s wife Margo Newmark Rosenbaum). The entire box set – from cover, to CD jackets, to booklet – is decorated with Art Rosenbaum’s unique paintings and sketches depicting the people he spent a lifetime recording. Highlights of the collection include a driving interweaving of harmonica and voice on “Mama Whoopin’ the Blues” by Neal Patman of Winterville, Georgia [Disk 1: Survey]; Ida Craig of Winnsboro, South Carolina and her solemn version of the spiritual “Sit Down, Servant” (accompanied by the sound of her ironing) [Disk 2: Religious]; Eddie Bowles of Cedar Falls, Iowa and his elegant “Bowles’ Blues” (Note: Bowles was born in New Orleans in 1884; be sure to check out his interview in the booklet that accompanies this entry) [Disk 3: Blues]; and Dallas Henderson of Indianapolis, Indiana on solo banjo with his harmonic-laden performance of “Lost Indian” [Disk 4: Instrumental and Dance].
Every tune in Art of Field Recording is a gem, and shine all the brighter because Rosenbaum’s love of music – and the people who do it – takes the listener on a journey into out-of-the-way American places where traditions are still created, re-created, and passed on down the line. People and the contexts in which they live their lives are a central focus in this collection, and that makes it different from other traditional music compilations. This collection is a worthy companion to Harry Smith’s classic set, and judging by this first installment, the two that will soon follow (Volume II in 2008 and Volume III in 2009) will be as well.
For further information, check out the following:
The Art of Field Recordingpromotional video, a five minute clip featuring some of the artists on the set.
Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University. Some of Rosenbaum’s massive collection of field recordings is deposited at this facility, which is the largest university-based ethnographic sound archive in the United States.
The American Folklife Center Some of Rosenbaum’s field recordings are also deposted in The American Folklife Center’s Archive of Folk Culture.
Bob McGrath of Eyeball Productions has just released an updated and revised edition of Hayes & Laughton’s landmark Gospel Discography, 1943-1970. During the fourteen years since that edition was published, a wealth of new information and detail has been uncovered, resulting in this substantially expanded 658 page incarnation. The listings are arranged alphabetically by artist and chronologically by session and matrix number. Also included are indexes for artists, song titles, 45 & 78 rpm discs, LPs and CD issues. Check out these sample pages and you’ll see what an amazing and essential resource this is for any collector, scholar, or performer of gospel music.
And last but not least, while you’re visiting the Eyeball website, also check out the 4 volume 2nd ed. of The R&B Indies published back in 2000 (also the recipient of an ARSC Award). This massive labelography of over 11,300 imprints features four decades of blues, gospel, R&B, zydeco, soul and funk released by “renegade” companies, ranging from hole-in-the-wall operations to such powerhouses as Atlantic, King, Chess, Mercury and Motown. The listings begin with the early post-war jump combos and continue through the blues craze of the forties and fifties, vocal groups of the sixties, through soul and funk of the seventies and eighties, overall providing a complete accounting of everything marketed under the R&B umbrella.
I must confess that all of the above information was culled from the Eyeball website. We’re hoping that the budget will allow for the purchase of at least a couple of these essential volumes in the near future. Librarians take note- these books should be on your reference shelves!
Title: Kidney Stew is Fine
Artist: Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson
Label: Delmark
Catalog No.: DD-631
Date: 1969, 2007
Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s Kidney Stew is Fine, originally recorded in France for the Black & Blue label in 1969, comes to us in a reissue from Chicago’s fine Delmark Records. A good thing, too, because Vinson played an appealing blend of be-bop and blues, with a hint of early R&B. Kidney Stew is Fine shows Vinson’s considerable talents as a singer and saxophonist in fine form.
Eddie Vinson first made his mark in the 1940s and 50s, fading into obscurity in the early 60s but staging a successful comeback by decade’s end. His 1969 release Wee Baby Blues, along with a European tour that same year, changed his fortunes, and during the final twenty years of his life he toured North America and Europe to consistent acclaim.
Vinson’s singing combined a gruff, bluesy baritone with a smooth, pop style reminiscent of Billy Eckstine. Vinson freely mixed these two sounds in many of his songs, even in a single phrase, where his raucous blues voice would give way to a legato, almost sentimental croon, laden with vibrato. Such eclecticism marks his singing on many tracks of this disc; “Please Send Me Someone to Love” is almost completely in the pop style, quietly and calmly closing the album.
The band is superb, supporting Vinson’s voice and saxophone appropriately. T-Bone Walker was a star in his own right, and his playing measures up to its usual standards, although here he wisely steps back to give Vinson the spotlight. Likewise, the rhythm section, with Jay McShann, Roland Lobligeois, and Paul Gunther on piano, bass, and drums, respectively, grooves hard but quietly so, rightly keeping the listener’s focus on Vinson and the songs themselves. Kidney Stew is Fine captures these musicians at a perfect moment in their careers, when they knew enough to play with relaxed assuredness, but were still hungry enough to play with conviction.
The tracks are appropriately eclectic for a man of Vinson’s abilities. “Wait a Minute Baby” slides along with a lively shuffle groove, one equally appropriate for jazz or blues. The title track mixes a gritty sax riff, full of blue notes, with a jaunty boogie-woogie over the major pentatonic scale—the effect is a nice mix of minor and major sounds. “Old Maid Blues” takes a similar approach, and adds Vinson’s solo alto sax, here with as many licks out of be-bop than blues. “Old Maid Blues” thus represents the entire disc quite well: lively, technically solid, and stylistically diverse. Kidney Stew is Fine is a welcome addition to the American catalog and a fine addition to any blues lover’s collection—or jazz or R&B collection, for that matter.
I hope that all of you are familiar with the fabulous book by Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891-1922, published in 2004 by the University of Illinois Press as part of their Music in American Life series (now available in a paperback edition). The 634 page tome, the result of more than thirty years of scholarship, not only details the role of black artists and their commercial recording activities, but offers fascinating biographies that are meticulously researched with abundant footnotes.
In his Introduction, Brooks discussed how many of these historic recordings have been inaccessible to students and scholars because of stringent U.S. copyright laws. As Brooks explains, “Not only can present-day record companies decline to reissue this material themselves, but they can—and do—prevent others from doing so by legal action or by demanding exorbitant fees.” We can be grateful, then, that Brooks decided to take matters into his own hands. Working with Illinois-based Archeophone Records, a company specializing in acoustic-era reissues, a 2 CD set was released late in 2005 as a companion to the book and recently received a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.
With 54 tracks by 43 artists (and over 2 ½ hours of music), Lost Sounds provides numerous early recorded examples of spirituals, minstrel & vaudeville songs, art music, rags, jazz, and blues performances by Black composers and musicians. Many of these recordings were meticulously transferred from wax cylinders, some of which are extremely rare and quite fragile, preserved largely through the efforts of private collectors. Included are a number of vocal quartet performances by groups such as the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, Polk Miller’s Old South Quartette, the Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, and the Tuskegee Institute Singers, as well as lesser known ensembles. George W. Johnson, the first Black recording artist (who merits four chapters in the book), performs his most famous work, “The Whistling Coon.” Other notable tracks include Booker T. Washington giving a portion of his Atlanta Exposition speech, the Afro-American Folk Song Singers and the Right Quintette performing works by Will Marion Cook, art songs performed by Roland Hayes and Florence Cole-Talbert, and R. Nathaniel Dett and Clarence Cameron White playing their own compositions. The set concludes on the brink of the Jazz Age with the “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” as played by Jim Europe’s [i.e., James Reese Europe] 369th U.S. Infantry “Hell Fighters” Band, “Camp Meeting Blues” with Ford Dabney’s Band, and the “St. Louis Blues” by W.C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band.
The CD is accompanied by extensive program notes (60 p.) by Tim Brooks and David Giovannoni, which provide detailed information about the performers and original sources. If you want to hear more about Brooks’ research, including some fascinating stories about these early recording artists, an interview from the public radio program “The Story with Dick Gordon” is now available online.
Archeophone has issued other CDs that compliment Lost Sounds, including Monarchs of Minstrelsy (2006), three volumes devoted to early African American recording star Bert Williams (2001-2004), and their most recent effort, King Oliver: Off the Record- The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings (2006). A complete catalog is available through their website. These CDs are “must haves” for every research library.
Old School is not just the title of Koko Taylor’s latest project—it captures the essence of every aspect of the album. “Old school” seems like an accurate description for the album cover, which features a seasoned Koko Taylor wearing a smug look with a smile that seems to suggest she knows something about life that the listener has yet to learn. Old school also seems to be the general theme of the narrative in the liner notes, where Koko recounts her hard life in the Deep South and her 1951 migration to Chicago with 35 cents to her name. Then she begins talking about the early Chicago blues clubs that she knew and loved, “We didn’t do to no clubs playing that fancy music…Nothing fancy, nothing beautiful. It was just a hole in the wall where a bunch of us was in there listening to the blues, dancing, drinking, talking loud, doing everything else.” Now that is definitely old school.
With Koko setting the scene, Old School is the soundtrack for that type of “hole in the wall” and those who enjoy the blues. In her latest project, she does her blues much like she’s been doing it since the 1960s. A Grammy Award winner and W.C. Handy Blues Award winner, she seems to take pride in the fact that her music remains largely unchanged from how she originally crafted it. Old School is a testament to the time-proven formula of what passionate, gutsy vocals, colorful, risqué lyrics, a driving, steady bassline, and singing, squealing guitar can accomplish.
Old School features twelve tracks of Koko’s trademark raspy, half-preaching and half-singing vocal delivery telling us about men, money, and hard-time living. The opening track, “Piece of Man,” is an upbeat blues number where Koko asserts that “a piece of man is better than no man at all.” Then “Money is the Name of the Game” takes the tempo way down as she explains the woes of being down on your financial luck. Throughout the album Koko rotates between three different bands and all three provide just the right level of bravado and funk to complement her vocals.
The one thing that would make this album better is if it were a live recording. Blues this earthy and gritty doesn’t belong in a fancy studio, it belongs in places where people are dancing, drinking, talking loud, and doing everything else.
Title: Stone Cold Ohio
Artist: Little Axe
Label: Realworld
Catalog No.: CDRW 140
Date: 2006
I must confess that I stumbled upon this recording purely by accident, having been attracted by the title. Since we try to feature regional (i.e., Midwest) artists on Black Grooves, I was curious to see just how Ohio figured into the mix. What a pleasant surprise to discover that Little Axe is actually Skip McDonald, a native of that “hotbed of funk” otherwise known as Dayton, Ohio.
McDonald is an extremely versatile musician who learned blues guitar quite literally on his father’s knee in the ‘50s and then honed his vocals in various doo-wop and gospel quartets while in high school. Moving to New York around 1971, he hooked up with bassist Doug Wimbush (who later joined the band Living Colour) and drummer Keith LeBlanc to form the house band for the Sylvia Robinson’s newly minted Sugarhill Records. After three years at Sugarhill, which included appearances on some of rap’s earliest hits—Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message,” and Melle Mel’s “White Lines”—the trio moved over to the Tommy Boy label, where they formed a relationship with innovative British producer/mixologist Adrian Sherwood. Sherwood moved the group to London, home of his On-U Sound label, where they were christened Tackhead (New Jersey slang for “homeboy”) and provided back-up for Sherwood’s various dub reggae, funk and rock projects. Though Tackhead basically disbanded in the early ‘90s, its members have been hugely influential, having played, produced and remixed for a wide range artists ranging from James Brown, Tina Turner, B.B. King, and George Clinton to Mick Jagger, R.E.M., Depeche Mode, and Bomb The Bass.
For Skip MacDonald, the break-up of Tackhead provided an opportunity to return to his blues roots. Since 1992 he has performed under the name “Little Axe”—a combination of Bob Marley’s “Small Axe” and gospel singer Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax—which perfectly fits with MacDonald’s blending of Delta blues, gospel, rock, and dub reggae into a “21st century experimental blues band.” His masterful debut album, The House That Wolf Built (1995), was said to have had a significant influence on Moby’s Play. The second Little Axe album, Slow Fuse, was released on the Wired label in 1996 but was not as widely acclaimed. After a hiatus spent working on other projects, MacDonald re-assembled his Tackhead bandmates and broke new ground with Hard Grind (2002), Champagne & Grits (2004), and his latest effort, Stone Cold Ohio (released in August 2006- see some great clips and interviews on the Realworld site).
Stone Cold Ohio, with its broad mix of influences and collage of samples, is one of those album’s that is impossible to categorize. Opening with the anti-war song “If I Had My Way,” which incorporates the chorus section from the gospel classic “Samson and Delilah,” the album continues to blend wholly original works (penned by B. Alexander aka Skip MacDonald) with bits of classic blues and gospel. Several covers are included as well, such as Allen Toussaint’s “Same People” and a fabulous reworking of Skip James’ “Hard Times.” Overall, this is a fascinating album, one which deserves far greater attention. Co-produced by Adrian Sherwood and MacDonald and recorded at the On-U Sound Studios, the album features MacDonald on guitar and vocals, with back-up provided by Keith LeBlanc and Nick Coplowe (aka Mutant Hi Fi), drum programming; Will Calhoun, live drums and percussion; Paget King, keyboards; Doug Winbush, bass guitar; and Ghetto Priest, Madeleine Edgehill, Valerie Skeete, Carlton Ogilvie, and Denise Sherwood, vocals (there’s also a great harmonica player who is not credited in the liner notes).
As summed up by MacDonald, “Little Axe is the blues, the deep blues channelled through time, dubbed, tweaked, sampled, processed, explored, refreshed—surfing the present, from the past, into the future.” What other musician can weave in and out of so many genres while providing a direct link to Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaata, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, James Brown, Robert Plant, Mark Stewart & The Mafia, Sinead O’Connor, and Megadeth. I, for one, definitely plan to seek out all of Little Axe’s previous releases.
These recordings, made on two cold Chicago nights in 1975, present the blues not as an artifact or polished product, but as a slice of space-time called Theresa’s. This little Southside club was where you could catch Junior Wells, any week he wasn’t on the road, between the late fifties and early eighties. Former Delmark producer Steve Tomashefsky sets the scene:
“You have to understand that Theresa’s could barely hold forty people, and most nights it cost only a dollar to get in. The drinks were cheap and there was no minimum. There was no stage as such. The musicians simply set up at one end of the room, with their amps and mike stands on the floor. There was no sound system. A string of blinking Christmas lights hung from the ceiling and framed the performing space.”
Tomashefsky, once a regular at the club, says Wells didn’t just sing or play harmonica—he played Theresa’s, holding court, bantering with the audience and filling the place with his outsized personality. Theresa’s is where Wells was most at ease and was “unquestionably the boss.” This comes through on these recordings, which retain his lengthy conversations with the audience and even a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for one of Wells’ friends.
The sound is rich and surprisingly well balanced considering the lack of a mixer. Then again, musicians this good can often make themselves sound better than most engineers could. Guitarists Phil Guy and Byther Smith form a prefect contrast—one’s tone dry and wiry, the other’s wet with reverb. The style is funky Chicago blues, with Wells occasionally quoting from one James Brown song or another. The playing is polished, but imperfect, loose and open-ended at times—it’s not about perfection, but feeling good. It’s the kind of live electric blues disc that is unlikely to be produced today, just as a Theresa’s (bulldozed in 1983 to make way for condos) is the kind of Southside blues club that may soon be gone for good.
A few weeks ago the Soul Queen of New Orleans was given a new treasure to put in her royal coffers—a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. There may have been a couple of reasons After the Rain won this honor. It is likely that many voters thought that this formal appreciation was long overdue for a performer of Irma Thomas’s stature. There is also the fact that the album is just the sort of thing Grammy likes: tasteful, smooth and expertly produced.
Many things about the disc suggest it is another heartfelt musical response to Katrina, including the title and album cover, which presents Thomas in baptismal white, perhaps finding renewed faith after submersion. The first lines of the first song, Arthur Alexander’s “In the Middle of it All,” take on new meaning when recorded only months after the storm: “My house was once a happy house/But now it is a lonely house.” The song is performed in a subdued country style and includes a powerful slide solo by Sonny Landreth.
This mixture of expert musicianship and stylistic fusion is present throughout After the Rain. The core of Thomas’s backing band is three of New Orleans’ best musicians—pianist David Torkanowsky, bassist James Singleton and drummer Stanton Moore. Moore (of funk band Galactic) and Torkanowsky are known for rollicking, syncopated rhythms. The spare style they exhibit on songs like “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor” is a real surprise that leaves plenty of room for improvisation by Singleton and banjo/guitar player Dirk Powell.
This is a very different Irma Thomas record from, say, those produced by Alan Toussaint. After the Rain sets Thomas’s ever-engaging, charismatic vocal performances in a variety of song choices, yet whether the source material is blues, gospel, R&B or soul, the result is always the sort of mid-tempo, “naturally” mic’ed and EQ’d recording that is currently considered tasteful by the industry. There is nothing wrong with this, but the buyer should be aware that this Grammy-winning “blues” record has much more in common with those of Norah Jones than Koko Taylor.
Risin’ with the Blues is Ike Turner’s second Grammy nominated release in five years and he is back once again to prove, at 75, that he knows the blues. Over the past five decades Turner has earned his place in music history as a musician, talent scout, producer, and band leader. His 1951 hit “Rocket 88” has been considered one of the earliest examples of rock and roll. As a talent scout Turner discovered such greats as Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and Muddy Waters. He earned his chops as bandleader with the Kings of Rhythm and showcased his skills in the Ike and Tina Soul Revue. At the end of his tumultuous marriage to Tina, Ike took a fifteen year hiatus only to re-emerge in 2001 with the Grammy nominated album Here and Now, the same year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Risin’ with the Blues is a mixed bag of soulful jazzy blues that highlights Turner as an ax man who knows his way around the ivories. Turner pays tribute to jump blues legend Louis Jordon with his bouncy version of “Caldonia.” He illustrates his aggressive, heavy hitting guitar style in “Rocking Blues,” while the soulful organ of the Erskine Hawkins tune “After Hours” shows a softer, more restrained side. Turner expresses a humorous side in “Give Me Back My Wig” and in the gritty shuffle blues “Tease Me,” then delves into jazz with Horace Silver’s “Senor Blues” and the instrumental “Jazzy Fuzzy.” He nods to gospel styling with “Jesus Loves Me” and wears his heart on his sleeve in the Holland-Dozier-Holland song “A Love like Yours.” One of the highlights of Risin’ with the Blues is Turner’s vocals. Stepping out as the lead, he lights up this album with his powerful voice and dynamic delivery.
Risin’ with the Blues is a solid body of work that affirms Ike Turner’s place in music history. Its sharp, clean production is evident throughout including the sophisticated, streamlined packaging. This CD is a testament to Turner’s strengths as a bluesman and will be a strong contender for a Grammy.
Specialty records, a Hollywood-based label that specialized in African-American blues and gospel records, signed Percy Mayfield and Larry Williams respectively in 1950 and 1954. Thanks to the Concord Music Group (current owner of Specialty) and the detailed research of music historian/producer Colin Escott, the Specialty Profile series commemorates these and several other lesser-known artists.
In the liner notes Escott comments: “While [Mayfield] might be known for just a handful of songs, his entire oeuvre repays attention. Don’t believe what the statistic book tells you; Percy Mayfield was a giant.” Endowed with a mellow, crooning baritone, Mayfield achieved his greatest success with the blues single “Please Send Me Someone To Love.” More fame came to him in the latter part of his career, when the “Poet Laureate of the Blues” penned one of his most recognizable tunes, “Hit the Road Jack,” for Ray Charles. Although Mayfield’s music is primarily identified as blues, there are tracks on the CD that exhibit some departure from the blues style. The up-tempo beat and jazz instrumentation of the duet “Sugar Mama-Peachy Papa” is more reminiscent of the big band sound of the 1940s. However, it is clear that his voice is more comfortable in the slow, mournful blues-based tracks, such as “Memory Pain.” Mayfield said himself, “I ventured into the world of sadness to find the subject matter for my songs. I fell in love with sadness because there’s more truth in it.”
Larry Williams, who signed with Specialty in the mid-1950s, had a successful albeit short career in the music industry. As a valet driver for Specialty label artist Lloyd Price, Williams gained access to producer Art Rupe. Williams’ hits “Short Fat Fanny,” “High School Dance,” “Bony Maronie” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” are essentially blues-influenced rock and roll numbers. In these tracks the shuffle beat is very apparent in piano and guitar lines, but there is more independence in the drum set. Unlike Mayfield, Williams did not use backup singers. He also relied less on call and response, and more on creative lyrics. According to Escott, “Along with the untutored vocals that went to the heart of rock and roll, his records had the beguiling innocence of the music’s infancy.” Aside from the four singles mentioned previously, the remainder of Williams’ work in rather unremarkable; it truly seems that his career ended almost as soon as it had begun.
Posted by Stephanie Fida
Editor’s note: Four additional CDs have recently been released on the Specialty Profile series: Lloyd Price, Roy Milton, John Lee Hooker, and Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers. Though each release includes two CDs, the second is a bonus disc of miscellaneous tracks from various Specialty CDs.
Title: Goin’ to Town
Artist: Deep Blue Organ Trio
Label: Delmark
Catalog No.: DE-569 (CD)/DVD-1569 (DVD)
Date: 2006
Although the “Blue” in Deep Blue Organ Trio (DBOT) refers to the blues, this ensemble’s recent live recording, Goin’ to Town (available on CD and DVD from Delmark Records), reveals a style more noteworthy for its eclecticism than for a reliance on any one genre. The recording’s liner notes quote guitarist Bobby Broom: “The name of the group came to us without too much thought or searching. The blues as an idiom and language…is obviously a part of our musical foundation individually and as a group.” “Foundation” is the operative word in this explanation. All six selections in DBOT’s set (recorded in 2005 at Chicago’s Green Mill Cocktail Lounge) betray many influences other than blues—particularly swing and bebop.
The members of DBOT are Chris Foreman (Hammond B3), Bobby Broom (hollow-body electric guitar), and Greg Rockingham (percussion). All three are versatile musicians, but the blind Foreman steals the show. Particularly on the DVD release is his prowess evident. Several close-ups of his hands underscore his idiosyncratic flat-fingered technique, his dexterity, and his frequent glissandi.
Glissandi, which involve sliding one’s hand across the keys of a piano or organ, feature prominently in Fields and Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight.” This song, incontestably a “standard,” is given a fresh face in DBOT’s thirteen-minute rendition, in which the melody only gradually emerges from a series of improvisations. For lengthy stretches, DBOT obliterate the song’s chord changes, seeking instead lengthy stretches of harmonic stasis, while Broom and Foreman solo with angular bebop-like melodies. Tension builds continuously until, cathartically, Foreman’s organ intones the well-known tune.
Goin’ to Town features only two numbers that follow a standard 12-bar blues AAB structure: “No Hype Blues,” composed by Broom, and “Lou,” composed by Rockingham. But neither tune remains wedded to standard harmonic protocol. In “No Hype,” Foreman supplies numerous harmonic substitutions over blues’s prototypical I, IV, and V harmonies, yielding a more complex take on the genre. In contrast, “Lou” minimizes chord changes, allowing Broom’s guitar solos to affect sounds of modal jazz.
The visual presentation on the DVD is fair. Each musician is given his proper due, but the program suffers from rather repetitive views of the players, and an occasionally shaky camera. Moreover, the grainy shots of the club’s audience do not enhance the DVD’s viewing experience.
But such is often the case with concert films, which must submit to the exigencies of the venue. Goin’ to Town is a collection of songs worth owning, either on CD or DVD, and it will repay continued listening.
Title: That Ain’t Right Artists: Magic Slim & Joe Carter
Label: Delmark
Catalog No.: DE-786
Date: 2006
Good things come to those who wait, but it is a crime to have had to wait almost thirty years for the release of these 1977 recordings of Chicago blues powerhouse Magic Slim & the Teardrops on That Ain’t Right. This was supposed to have been Magic Slim & the Teardrops American debut album, having been organized by veteran Chicago producer Ralph Bass and Henry Stone (of Miami’s TK Records) back in 1977. The blues business being what it is, the album never made it to the shelves. Thanks to the fine people at Delmark, we now have this recording back on the shelves and back in its original form. The 1977 recording had been modified in post production to give Slim’s guitar a cleaner, more conservative tone. Unfortunately, this took away his signature gritty sound, which is the very heart of the heavy, electric Chicago blues style. Thanks to some expert remastering, Delmark is able to send this legendary Chicago blues guitarist’s infamous tone and biting vibrato straight to our doors just as it would have been heard from Slim’s amplifier. It is worth every note.
Another victim of the delayed release of the 1977 Ralph Bass recording sessions was Joe Carter. By contrast to Magic Slim’s howling tone, this CD closes out with Joe Carter and his Elmore James/T-Bone Walker style of vintage Chicago blues. Carter’s slide guitar playing is smooth and impeccable—a true tribute to Elmore James—and he really shines on covers of “Stormy Monday” and “I’m Worried.” This is one of only two sessions Carter ever recorded and it features Lacy Gibson, guitar; Sunnyland Slim, piano; Willie Black, bass; and Fred Below, drums. Unlike Magic Slim, Carter did little after these 1977 sessions since health problems forced him out of the clubs of Chicago. He passed away in 2001 and these recordings will make you take notice and miss the music lost. As for the delay of the release of these recordings, I believe the album title says it all—That Ain’t Right.
Title: Unreleased Artist: Ray Charles
Label: Night Train International
Catalog No.: NTI CD 7154
Date: 2006
This isn’t your mama’s Ray Charles. These previously unreleased tracks from the Swing Time label were recorded from 1949-1951, nearly a decade before Charles’s first LP for Atlantic. Here we discover the vocal stylings of a young Ray Charles at the very threshold of his career, covering pop and blues ballads with some jazz piano licks thrown in for good measure. Think Nat King Cole, but with a bluesier edge. Charles never breaks a sweat in this mellow, slow groove set that only hints at the gospel-inflected soul that would soon become his trademark sound.
Though the packaging runs more to the budget side of things, with scant liner notes by Nick Loss-Eaton offering a very brief history of Charles’s Swing Time recordings, more attention was obviously given to the remastering. Working from metal masters and lacquer discs, engineer Art “Shiffy” Shifrin did a great job in cleaning up the initial tracks on the CD, paying particular attention to maintaining the broad bandwidth of the original masters in an effort to duplicate the sound that the session engineers would have heard in the control room when the grooves were being cut. The remaining tracks were apparently remastered from tape sources by Moses Nagel, who used a much heavier hand in terms of noise reduction.
Unreleased is actually more of a companion (think vol. 3) to NTI’s earlier double CD set, Ray Charles: The Complete Swing Time/Down Beat Recordings, offering up alternate takes that hadn’t yet been discovered when the latter was released in 2001. Collectors and fans of Ray Charles will want to own all 3 CDs, which together offer a complete set of his earliest, rarest tracks.
Title: New Born
Artist: Calvin Newborn
Label: Yellow Dog Records
Catalog No.: YDR 1157
Date: 2005
The story of seventy-year-old guitarist Calvin Newborn is steeped in Memphis legend—B.B. King helped him pick out his first guitar and his friend Elvis copped his stage moves. On New Born, he gives us a take on Jazz that’s Memphis all the way—recorded June 19 and 21, 2004, at Sam Phillips Studio and released on local Yellow Dog Records, this collection of mostly original compositions is full of bluesy elegance. A straight-ahead track like “Spirit Trane/Omnifarious” conjures up John Coltrane and Wes Montgomery, while “After Hours Blues” is straight Beale Street, but both exhibit the soulful sophistication of Newborn’s playing and the tight grooves of his octet. The disc sounds like a classic and looks like a classic, featuring excellent artwork and informative liner notes by Andria Lisle on the life of this underappreciated artist.
Every June, during the Chicago Blues Festival, the Jazz Record Mart hosts a Blues Brunch, an incredible chance to fill your belly with breakfast, your shopping bag with CDs and your ears with the best live blues that Delmark has to offer. If you happened not to be there last year, Delmark got the festivities on tape—nine of its best artists, backed by Michael Coleman and his band. One of the standouts of the set is Coleman himself. The mercury-fingered guitarist mixes jazzy chord work, flurries of notes and dramatic changes in dynamics to spin a haunting version of “The Sky is Crying.” Other performers include Lurrie Bell, Steve Frund, Willie Kent, Tail Dragger, Zora Young, Little Arthur Duncan, Aaron Moore and Shirley Johnson. This is a relaxed concert with good performances and plenty of between-song banter. It may not be an essential blues purchase, but it sure is a lot of fun.
A 1960 picture of Muddy Waters, Pat Hare and Jimmy Cotton performing in the studio of Chicago’s WOPA appears on the covers of the CD compilation and companion book Broadcasting the Blues: Black Blues in the Segregation Era. Also in the studio that day was the collection’s creator, Paul Oliver, one of the earliest and best writers on the blues. The 191 page book (published separately by Routledge) is a collection of radio scripts Oliver wrote for the BBC that examines the roots and development of the form. History, heroic figures of African American folk music, meanings of song texts and discourses around the blues are all addressed in an erudite but conversational style. The three discs present musical examples and interviews that Oliver played on those radio programs. Broadcasting the Blues functions both as an introduction to early blues and a source of insight into the music’s many roles in the pre-integration United States.
Title: Boogie Uproar: Texas Blues and R&B 1947-1957 Artists: Various
Label: JSP Records
Catalog No.: JSP7758
Date: 2006
The most important musician evoked on JSP’s Boogie Uproar: Texas Blues and R&B 1947-1957 doesn’t play a lick on it. It’s impossible to represent Texas blues without including its progenitor, T-Bone Walker, and the period covered by this 4 CD box set is the era when Walker was releasing his most powerful sides–yet the man is missing from the track list. Instead, this interesting collection presents 103 tunes by Walker’s contemporaries, electric guitarists who started out imitating him, then spent years trying to get out from under his shadow. The most famous artist on Boogie Uproar is Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. The Brown I ran into in New Orleans in the late ‘90s was a pistol-packing almost-octogenarian who did things his way, playing country fiddle and jazz guitar in the same show. It’s fascinating, then, to hear him in his early years, playing the swinging, horn-powered sound of Walker, trying to find his swagger and making his own mark on cuts like the instrumental title track. The other performers include Zuzu Bollin, Nelson Carson, Goree Carter, R.B. Thibadeaux and Lester Williams. Some distinguish themselves more than others, and a lot of the material compiled sounds fairly similar. However, the liner notes do a good job of providing an historical snapshot of this seminal blues era–this a solid choice to add some Texas to your blues collection.
Title: Old Time Southern Black String Band Music Artists: Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas
Label: Arhoolie
Catalog No.: CD 9045
Date: 2006
Butch Cage and Willie B. Thomas were the sons of sharecroppers in Zachary, Louisiana and known by locals as a hot fiddle and guitar combo in the 1950s. Towards the end of that decade, LSU folklorist Harry Oster approached the men to make some recordings—by 1960, they were playing the Newport Folk Festival. The music of Cage and Thomas is hard to categorize—despite the region and instrumentation, there is not as much of the Cajun or Zydeco sound as one might expect. Oster called Cage “a great representative of the now virtually extinct 19th century fiddle tradition.”
Titles: Forever Young, Gifted and Black ; Silk & Soul ; Nina Simone Sings the Blues Artist: Nina Simone
Label: Legacy
Catalog No.: 82876 74413 2 ; 82876 73335 2 ; 82876 73334 2
Date: January 2006
Legacy/Sony BMG has recently reissued Nina Simone’s first two RCA releases, Silk & Soul and Nina Simone Sings the Blues, while compiling a new disc entitled Forever Young, Gifted and Black. With their bonus tracks, liner notes and live material, these digitally remastered CDs will appeal to newcomers and old fans alike.
Few artists have brought so many influences together while maintaining such a distinctive persona. Contemporary performers often release monochromatic albums, as if afraid to undermine their “serious artist” status by writing anything funny or lighthearted. Lyrically, Simone’s albums leap from drama to humor to pathos like a well-written play—like life itself. She moves between musical styles with equal ease. On Silk & Soul, for example, she covers Burt Bacharach, employs elaborate, classically influenced arrangements, and sings an Aretha Franklin tune. Tying it all together is her unorthodox, one of a kind voice—strange, beautiful and uncommonly emotive.
Legacy is doing the artist and her fans justice with these reissues. I hope they make it all the way through her RCA catalogue. I can’t wait for It is Finished to get this treatment—her last album for RCA, which features her amazing version of “Funkier than a Mosquito’s Tweeter” has been available only on import for at least a decade.
Title: Shake For Me
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Title: ![B0009HBPC6.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg](http://blackgrooves.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/B0009HBPC6.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].thumbnail.jpg "B0009HBPC6.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg")
Title: ![B000EOTVR0.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V54732223_[1].jpg](http://blackgrooves.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/B000EOTVR0.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V54732223_[1].thumbnail.jpg "B000EOTVR0.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V54732223_[1].jpg")
Title: ![B000E40PQQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg](http://blackgrooves.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/B000E40PQQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].thumbnail.jpg "B000E40PQQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1].jpg")
Title: Broadcasting the Blues![B000CDRHZQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]1.jpg](http://blackgrooves.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/B000CDRHZQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]1.thumbnail.jpg "B000CDRHZQ.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]1.jpg")
Title: Boogie Uproar: Texas Blues and R&B 1947-1957
Title: Old Time Southern Black String Band Music![674413cvr[1].jpg](http://blackgrooves.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/674413cvr[1].thumbnail.jpg "674413cvr[1].jpg")
Titles: Forever Young, Gifted and Black ; Silk & Soul ; Nina Simone Sings the Blues
