The Blues Thread

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, we've got threads about folk & jazz & prog rock - even one about Tangerine Dream.
Now it's time to twang yer Diddley Bow on the porch (.........so to speak).

Let's hear about The Blues.

[The Grand Wazoo]

To kick off, I thought some of you guys might like to hear about a blues CD that I love.

The Unknown John Lee Hooker 1949 Recordings
Flyright – FLYCD 57


The story behind the album is just as fascinating as the music on it – It’s the tale of a private recording session in Detroit made by a cartoonist who now lives in Prague. Gene Deitch drew cartoons for the ‘Record Changer’ magazine & went to see Hooker who was all but unknown at the time. After the gig he told Hooker about his group of friends who were into the blues. The guitarist offered come to his house to play for them, which he did.

John Lee was only interested in playing sophisticated blues for the tastes of the folk living in the northern cities but he was coaxed into playing some of the old country stuff from back home in the south – “I don’t think anyone wants to that old stuff today”. The recording was made on a portable mono tape recorder on cheap fragile paper tape and was later transferred to more conventional stock.

Deitch took one reel of the tape with him when he moved to Prague in the 1960, played it to friends for a while & then stored it in his basement, where it lay for 35 years.

One day in 1999 Deitch was leaving his house, he met a guy who was hanging around outside, waiting for him. They got chatting & it turned out that the stranger had come looking for Deitch after reading his book of memoirs about Communist Prague. They went to lunch & started talking about the blues & it turned out that the stranger at the door was Paul Vernon – a true blues aficionado, so Deitch, wanting to trump him, mentioned that he had once recorded John Lee Hooker. Vernon couldn’t believe him & asked if he still had the tapes, so they went to the basement & raked around for a while till they found one marked John Lee Hooker – Reel 2. Deitch had forgotten where Reel 1 was and had to be reminded by his son in New York that he’d loaned the tape to a well known record collector, Tony Schwartz. Through a bizarre coincidence, it turned out that Schwartz had recently bumped into one of Deitch’s friends in New York & they had exchanged phone numbers! Schwartz was 80 years old and very ill but finally the loaned tape was returned after 50 years!

The tapes were unknown in the world of the blues & contained Hooker playing material that he never recorded again, so their importance is incalculable. Deitch & Vernon realised that the world should hear these songs & that they should not profit from the enterprise. The music, being 50 years old was out of copyright in Europe, so a CD was released there, but not in the US as it lasts for 75 years. Hooker’s management accused them of trying to ruin his career & reputation & threatened to sue the bejeezus out of them if they didn’t get the tapes. Deitch said they could have them as long as he could be assured that John Lee would get to hear them after all those years. They didn’t give that assurance, so he didn’t sell. In the end Hooker’s daughter contacted Deitch when she heard about the tracks & it turned out that the manager and lawyer were keeping all of these developments from him. She played a copy of the tapes to the 84 year old Hooker who couldn’t remember anything about the session, but of course he loved them. Deitch passed the masters over to the keeping of Zakiya Hooker, herself a blues recording artist.

The ‘unofficial’ album I have was a necessarily a limited release, but has been re-issued as ‘Jack O'Diamonds’ on Eagle Records.

The music is, of course intimate and very different from the usual one chord Boogie-Chillun style that he later came to be known for. I like John Lee Hooker’s music a lot, but much of it is pretty ‘samey’ – this is different. I have a good handful of Hooker albums, some of them are worth a lot of cash, but if I could only own one, this would be it.

The whole story of the recording is on Gene Deitch’s website:
http://www.genedeitch.com/
Select pages 10 to 14.
Page 14 has audio clips from the album.

[symon]

Wow! That sounds great. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

I've been listening to teh blues for quite a long time. I got to it through bands like Cream, and originally listened to John Lee Hooker, and white boy blues.
Eventually, I moved deeper and found the true greats - Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House. Then came Mississipi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Reverend Gary Davis. All these guys scare the hell out of me because their guitar playing is astonishing. For a genre that is known as being simple, these guys prove all of that to be very very wrong. Some of them in particular played with just two picking fingers and were able to do more than I can even dream of doing with a full hand! :lolsign:

Great stuff, great voices, great sense of atmosphere from their playing. Delta blues is where it's at, man!

[Beechwoods]

I'll be honest and say that 'the blues' is a form of music that I've never really got into, though certain forms of country (in particular dobro stuff) have a clear blues influence, and I enjoy that. Early music recording history however is fascinating and this story is superb in that respect! It is also illustrates the very difficult issues around copyright working against the saving and archival of old and fragile recordings, some of which will be dust by the time such lengthy rights (lobbied for by the big organisations like Disney) expire.

Thanks for the story Chris!

[John]

I can enjoy the blues I like players like Buddy Guy Albert King Albert Collins Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Freddie King
Here are a few of my favs
Buddy Guy Live at the Checkerborad
Howling Wolf The Lonon sessions
Muddy Waters Live at Newport
Over the weekend I try and write review for oneof my favorites
Everyone loves Clapton but he never really did it for me The other player at the time who did is Peter Green now he has anamazing tone

[The Grand Wazoo]

I'll be honest and say that 'the blues' is a form of music that I've never really got into, though certain forms of country (in particular dobro stuff) have a clear blues influence, and I enjoy that.

Haha!......We appear to be polar opposites in that respect. Though there is so much country influence in a lot of what I like, I can't get my head around 'proper' country music. However, The Band, Jayhawks, Byrds, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams.......all that stuff, I can listen to all day long.

Horror of horrors though, I find 'Sweetheart at the Rodeo' all but unlistenable, yet, strangely, I love 'Grievous Angel' - now work that one out!

[The Grand Wazoo]

I can enjoy the blues I like players like Buddy Guy Albert King Albert Collins Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Freddie King
Here are a few of my favs
Buddy Guy Live at the Checkerborad
Howling Wolf The Lonon sessions
Muddy Waters Live at Newport
Over the weekend I try and write review for oneof my favorites
Everyone loves Clapton but he never really did it for me The other player at the time who did is Peter Green now he has anamazing tone

Clarence Gatemouth Brown, I love.

I agree with you about Clapton. I can admire his playing & he has good taste in his choice of blues covers, he always wanted to be Buddy Guy, but never came close.

Peter Green will always be special for me. It was his playing on things like 'The Stumble', 'The Supernatural', 'Need Your Love So Bad' etc that got me investigating blues. Great stuff!

[John]

Here is a clip of Gatemouth Brown not Strictly Blues but boy does he play with a lot of heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ40kVRvcdk
Here is a Freddie King Clip you cn hear where players like Page and Clapton get there influnces from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdyvPg0c6bI
This is a great Howling Wolf track
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1M1SzMDPso
Muddy Waters with Otis Spann I love the JohneLennon story when he first goes to Amercia some journlist asks him what hemost wants to do he says to see Muddy Waters the journlist says where is that ;enjoy!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7NxY3uMpSc
Buddy and Junior playing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UYY1OKI5HY&feature=related
Albert Collins A converstaion with Collins I love the humour and lovethe way hemakes his guitar talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUSw9_38xAo

[hifi_dave]

Blues and Blues inspired is my main listening fare. Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, Dylan (early), Hendrix, Zeppelin, Yardbirds and too many more to mention are what excite me. I can never get over how someone in the depths of despair, singing out their sorrows and woes can cheer me up like no other music. :smoking:

I just love seeing these old boys, effortlessly singing and playing their hearts out, they make it look so easy.

[Beechwoods]

Haha!......We appear to be polar opposites in that respect.

Horror of horrors though, I find 'Sweetheart at the Rodeo' all but unlistenable, yet, strangely, I love 'Grievous Angel' - now work that one out!

:lol: Polar opposites we are! I love the stuff on Sweetheart but cannot abide Gram Parson's solo stuff! Live is something else, but on record... :doh:

Must be a left brain right brain thing!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Early music recording history however is fascinating


I'm reading the 1972 biography of Bessie Smith 'Empress of the Blues' by Chris Albertson at the moment.

There's a bit which describes the first recording she made into a microphone rather than into a horn. This was 1925. Electronic recording was still very much experimental & the learning curve was, shall we say 'steep'.

The label (Columbia) was just converting to the new system & their first recording of a 'race record' was only made this way one hour before Bessie went into the booth, so they didn't yet know how the session was going to turn out. The band included players such as (.......get this....) Fletcher Henderson & Coleman Hawkins. Western Electric had their engineers there for the session because Columbia were hoping to get ahead of the game with this new fangled electric kit.

One of the WE engineers thought the studio room was too big for the microphone they were using so he felt the room acoustics should be altered, so they made a huge conical tent that they suspended from the ceiling & lowered over the band & Bessie!! At the end of the session, the tent collapsed & fell on the band, smothering them all - that was the end of the 'Tent Theory'.

Anyway, the Paramount label were keen to get in on the electrical recording scene & did so with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith's big rival. However, the Paramount recordings, despite having 'Electrically Recorded' printed on the label sounded crap compared to the Columbia efforts, which apparently led to the standing joke in the industry that Paramount just carried on recording the same old way with the horn, but to justify the 'Electrically Recorded' logo on the label, just turned on an electric light bulb while the sessions were in progress!!!!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Some Blues stuff on BBC4 this weekend:

A programme about Bobby Bland

an in concert with Son House

and some other stuff. It's available on the iPlayer

[The Grand Wazoo]

Essential for buying Blues recordings................

..........Red Lick Records: http://www.redlick.com/

New & secondhand.
Plus an encyclopedialogical knowledge of the subject.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I just read this morning that Koko Taylor died this week.

She was one of the best - worked with Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Buddy Guy and many others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3QySTQlmI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-o-s-5eAXc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-feif-Q6Kok&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxCa16-nxtM&feature=related

Her self titled album & 'Force of Nature' are probably the best if I had to pick two.
I'll be playing both today.

[Barry]

I just read this morning that Koko Taylor died this week.

She was one of the best - worked with Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Buddy Guy and many others.
.........

Her self titled album & 'Force of Nature' are probably the best if I had to pick two.
I'll be playing both today.

Thanks for passing on this sad news.

Out of respect I played the only disc of hers I have: 'Wang Dang Doodle' (BLU NC 029), Part 29 of the 'Blues Collection' partwork. They are all here on this disc, those that you have mentioned as well as Robert Nighthawk and Matt 'Guitar' Murphy.

Barry

[The Grand Wazoo]

Right then, before we start, do me a favour & put a little Jimmy Reed music on for me.
Click on the You Tube link here please & then we’ll move swiftly on…………..

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Between 1957 & 1963, Jimmy Reed had an amazing run of chart success in the US - 18 hits in the R&B Chart & 12 hits in the pop chart, making him one of the most popular blues musicians ever. The significance of the above chart success may not be so obvious to folks from the UK, but it means that his popularity was able to reach across a racial divide – very rare for the time, with only BB King coming close to matching this.

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/JimmyReed.jpg
http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/veejay119b.jpg http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/veejay100b.jpg

Almost all of his recordings were based on his successful formula of a laid back boogie shuffle, drums and his guitar closely shadowing each other, the melody was given warmth by the guitar of Eddie Taylor and there was always lots of echo and screeching harmonica solos punctuated the whole lot. Lazy and seemingly half-asleep singing lyrics of self-deprecation, probably because his wife, Mary Lee (or 'Mama Reed') wrote many of the lyrics!

All of this could sound like a recipe for disaster, but it works! The simple arrangements and basic musicianship also meant that his songs were easily accessible to just about everyone and an obvious source of material for anyone starting out in a band. His almost complete lack of any discernable instrumental talent must have made a lot of white kids think that they could do it too – the punk ethic was nothing new! He was incredibly influential, having been covered by Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Charlie Rich, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Jr., The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison (with Them), The Grateful Dead, The Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Aretha Franklin, Steve Miller, Johnny Winter, Koko Taylor, George Thoroughgood. Bob Dylan has said that his use of harmonica originates from his early attempts to copy Reed. Even BB King's success didn't yield so many high profile cover versions so maybe that would make Jimmy Reed amongst the most influential of all blues musicians.

http://www.bluesharp.ca/legends/jreed1.jpg

Mathis James Reed was born on a plantation in Dunleith, Mississippi in September 1925 and by the time he was 15 had started to learn the fundamentals of guitar playing from a local friend Eddie Taylor who had started working semi-professionally in the local music scene. Three years of school didn't do too much for him as even much later in life the only thing he could write was his signature. After a move to Chicago and a spell in the Navy he started to become active in the music business, playing harmonica in John Brim's Gary Kings and busking with a character called Willie Joe Duncan, who played an amplified, single stringed creation called a Unitar.

He attended and failed an audition with Chess Records, something that Chess would later come to deeply regret as his huge chart success in later years made a significant dent in their potential sales figures. The drummer in John Brim's band – a person who you may have heard of by the name of Albert King helped to get Reed a contract with a new label called Vee-Jay Records. So Jimmy Reed started recording under his own name and with instrumental backing from his old friend Eddie Taylor. The first two singles flopped, but the third 'You Don't Have to Go' / 'Boogie in the Dark' reached number five slot on the Billboard chart. After that, Reed's output became a consistant goldmine for Vee-Jay.

http://www.bronteblues.com/jimmy%20reed%20book.jpg

Despite outselling Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Little Walter, there were problems with the success as Reed slipped into alcoholism and his drunken behaviour became legend on the live circuit. In 1957 was diagnosed as an epileptic. He didn't realise the fits he was having were caused by the disease until it was quite advanced – he just thought it was a bad case of the DT's! In the studio he needed a lot of support and Eddie Taylor told in interviews how he would have to sit right in front of Reed so that he could supply the musical cues for everything Reed did – when to start and stop singing, when the harmonica solo should kick in and when to make the changes in his guitar playing. In the meantime Mama Reed would be perched behind him on a piano stool with the lyrics to hand, whispering them into in his ear as he sang. On a couple of his massive hits – 'Big Boss Man' & 'Bright Lights, Big City' he loses the beat so she steps in and accompanies him out loud on the vocal.
As the chart success began to dry up because of the illness and the booze and Vee-Jay's fortunes were on the wane too and his final Vee-Jay single was 'Don't Think I'm Through'. A contract with ABC-Bluesway was agreed and some recordings released but they never really took off. Things picked up a bit in 1970 with a tour with Clifton Chenier and a record on Roker Records. He recorded more for Blues On Blues in 1971 and for Magic records 1972. A better contract came with ABC-Bluesway in 1973 and several albums were issued during the next year. Much of this material was really only a shadow of the great music that he had once made – Jimmy Reed by numbers really. The final attempt to regain success came with the release of an album aimed at the younger audience who were now listening to more funk than blues. Reed embarked on a tour of the US blues festivals in '76, during which he died in his sleep of an epileptic seizure which caused a respiratory failure. He was 51 years old and was buried at the Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois.

So the real joy with Jimmy Reed recordings comes from his string of singles that were released on the Vee-Jay label some of which have become complete blues and rock standards. For a while the formula was a winner! Charles Shaar Murray said that Jimmy Reeds recordings are like peanuts - they all taste the same but just one is never enough. How true.

Take a listen to some of these:

‘Big Boss Man’

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'Ain't That Lovin' You Baby'

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'Honest I Do'

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'What You Want Me to Do'

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'Bright Lights, Big City'

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Further listening - moving beyond Jimmy Reed:
As stated above, Jimmy Reed's records had huge influence on a wide range of musicians. The US garage bands of the '60's jumped on Reed's songs – a natural choice for players that had limited musical ability, because it was easy to play a convincing version of a well known song.

In the UK, bands like the Stones and Pretty Things were genuine fans of the material and played them with respect to the originals.

Back with the US blues scene, other musicians added elements of Reed's style to their sound and there was a particular cluster of these acts in Louisiana, which became known as Louisiana Swamp Blues. Jimmy Anderson barely changed the formula at all while Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Lonesome Sundown and Lightnin' Slim took the laid back tempo, simple guitar figures, monstrous echo and dark feeling and stirred in portions of down-home country blues, gospel, R&B and soul in varying proportions.

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Slim Harpo, in particular, had his own success in the 50's & 60's with singles like 'I'm a King Bee', which was also covered by the Stones. Harpo’s personal formula added a little polish to the Jimmy Reed version and maybe just a touch of the feel of the likes of Fats Domino to the sound (though I don’t think pianos featured greatly on any of his recordings). A close listen to Harpo’s singing style shows you who a young Mick Jagger may have spent a good while listening to.

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In turn, bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival took that sound & shook it up. One could consider things like 'Graveyard Train' to be a natural progression of Jimmy Reed's work.

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[Barry]

Excellent write up there Chris. You really have done your homework, well done.

Only one minor criticism: can you get the Moderators to reformat the page, I had to re-scale to 75%, so as avoid scrolling across the page.

The only Jimmy Reed I have is an American import of:

"t'aint no big thing but HE is ... JIMMY REED". VeeJay SR 1067. Can't give the date as American pressing never give you that information on the label.

I also have a compilation:

Jimmy Reed "You Don't Have to Go", Part 18 of the 'Blues Collection', a part work by Orbis Publishing. All the tracks are original Vee Jay recordings.

Regards

[The Grand Wazoo]

Only one minor criticism: can you get the Moderators to reformat the page, I had to re-scale to 75%, so as avoid scrolling across the page.


Regards


How's that Barry, does it work better now?

[symon]

Jimmy Reed used to get all his friends in the studio and get them to play along too. There are loads of guitars playing on his tracks. All of them doing quite simple but effective stuff, such as just playing one chord in the background. Great stuff.

[Barry]

How's that Barry, does it work better now?

Yes that looks much better - anyway the important thing is it has encouraged be to dig out my Jimmy Reed and give it a spin!

Regards

[mwheelerk]

Some of my all time favorite blues albums:

Muddy Waters - Folk Singer
Howlin Wolf - The Real Folk Blues
Jimmy Reed - At Carnegie Hall
Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign
Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues
Magic Sam - Black Magic
John Lee Hooker - Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive
B B King - Lucille
T Bone Walker - T Bone Blues

Guaranteed great as far as I am concerned!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Sad to hear this morning that David Honeyboy Edwards just died at almost 96 yrs old - he was one of the last in the direct line back to the start of it all.
If you read some of his obituaries, they're kind of like a who's who of the blues because he was associated with Charlie Patton, Big Joe Williams, Tommy Johnson, Rice Miller, Robert Johnson.......and on, and on.

He was recorded by Lomax in the 40's

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[WAD62]

If you're looking around for some newer blues artists try the 'Black Keys', simplistically put they could be described as a 'bluesey' white stripes...but they are much better than that IMHO

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[Werner Berghofer]

Will,


If you're looking around for some newer blues artists […]

then Keb’ Mo’ also should be mentionend and suggested.

Werner.

[WAD62]

Will,



then Keb’ Mo’ also should be mentionend and suggested.

Werner.

Cheers Werner, I'll check him/her/them out, always good to get new tips :cool:

[electric beach]

Will,



then Keb’ Mo’ also should be mentionend and suggested.

Werner.

I'd 2nd that. Mr Kevin Moore may well be more accessible to anyone who finds "the blues" a bit too - well, blue :)

The most common work is the eponimous Keb' Mo', but I just bought Suitcase last week and it's excellent, both for the songs/ musicianship and also the recording.

[Stratmangler]

I'd 2nd that. Mr Kevin Moore may well be more accessible to anyone who finds "the blues" a bit too - well, blue :)

The most common work is the eponimous Keb' Mo', but I just bought Suitcase last week and it's excellent, both for the songs/ musicianship and also the recording.

He's an excellent live performer too - well worth going to see if you can :)

[Welder]

It was Werners shout for Keb' Mo' that made me dig this out.

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[jimdgoulding]

Lying round home alone
On a rainy night like this
Starving for your love
Hungry for just one kiss
Every rain drop I hear
Against my window pane
Beats so loud and clear words that spell your name

I got nowhere to turn
Tired of being alone
I feel like breaking up somebody's home
[x2]

I know it's useless
Hanging on to you when you belong to someone else
Can't change my feelin’ child
Cause after all I didn't make it myself

Last night I cried so hard I believe I caught a chill
Can't control the vibration
My heart just won't stand still

Got nowhere to turn
I'm tired of feelin' alone
I feel like breaking up somebody's home

That blue enough for you? Well, I wish you could hear the Jimmy Johnson Blues Band's rendition of it.

R&B was the youth music round the time I was reaching puberty in North Dallas, Texas, Freddie King's homebase. I can't remember a single white artist from the day that could hold a match to black performers. The biggest joke amongst my friends was Pat Boone doin Little Richard covers. And, Elvis Presley. Well, at least they exposed the likes of Little Richard and Willie Mae Thorton to larger audiences. My collection of 45rpm's were from labels like Duke, Federal, King, Vee Jay, Atlantic, and Chess.

Some modern bands and players that came out of this tradition in Texas were SRV, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli (see if you can download the title track and Too Late from her Deja Blue album and the opening story telling track from Blond and Blue), The Jazz Crusaders, Boz Scaggs (Come on Home), Lou Ann Barton and countless others.

Man, I loves the BLUES, always!

[Neil McCauley]

Re The Blues, you might find this archive to be of interest > http://bit.ly/pcNTCy

Regards. Howard.


***********************

[John]

Check out Otis Taylor for something that manages to bring in something new
http://open.spotify.com/user/gamalon/playlist/0Rq9ykbi3PnCHZMAnsQtVI
and if you feeling a bit brave try Chris Thomas King
http://open.spotify.com/user/gamalon/playlist/5k3NnJRAiTWXIcvrnJOALq

[Stratmangler]

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