The Blues Thread

[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...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-feif...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxCa1...eature=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…………..



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.




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.



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.



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’



'Ain't That Lovin' You Baby'



'Honest I Do'



'What You Want Me to Do'




'Bright Lights, Big City'







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.



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.



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.

[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