|
Listen
to the Music
You need real audio to listen to these clips. Download it free by clicking on
the icon.
|
|
Hound Dog Taylor:
Release The Hound (Alligator) 
Nobody
made such a glorious, good time racket as Hound Dog
Taylor and his HouseRockers. Unfortunately the party
ended in 1975 when Hound Dog succumbed to cancer after
cutting only two studio records. Now over a quarter
century after his death we have "Release The
Hound," a raw and wild collection of live recordings
that show Hound Dog and the boys in all their ragged
glory.
This
14 song collection is stitched together from a a variety
of sources including four from Cleveland's Smiling
Dog Saloon, another three from a Harvard University
gig, three unreleased studio tracks, one from a radio
broadcast and one possibly from an Australian television
broadcast. We're lucky to have these sides at all
as the tapes were almost deemed technically unworthy
of release. That's hard to believe considering how
good they sound but a huge thanks goes to engineer
Doug Stout who worked magic on these tapes. These
recordings are an absolute blast of raw good time
music and low-down blues showing perfectly why these
guys were so beloved.
It's
hard to believe a trio could make such a racket but
oblivious to the obvious distortion they always had
the volume cranked to ten. Hound Dog's savage slide
work is the centerpiece backed telepathically by wild
man Brewer Phillips running off buzzing, thumping
bass lines as he danced and kicked his leg in the
air while Ted Harvey (Levi Warren fills in on three
cuts) stomps out a steady minimalist beat. No matter
where they played they never altered the juke joint
feel of the music and it always sounds like they're
having as much fun or more than the audience. The
band favored mostly stomping boogies and shuffles
like the vicious slide soaked "Wild About You
Baby" as Hound Dog hollers out the blues in his
high tenor, the thumping shuffle of "She's Gone",
a wild and wooly take on Ray Charles' "What'd
I Say" and his raucous tribute to Howlin' Wolf
on the mostly instrumental "The Dog Meets The
Wolf." It's not all up-tempo boogies as Hound
Dog takes it back in the alley on deep blues like
the heartfelt "Sitting At Home Alone" and
his stunning take on "It Hurts Me Too",
his voice cracking with emotion as he cranks out raw
and beautiful slide following in the footsteps of
past slide masters Tampa Red, who cut the original,
and Elmore James who later made the song his own.
Along the way there's a few stories, plenty of good
natured joking and of course the audience who's going
absolutely nuts.
"Release
The Hound" is a fabulous addition to the slim
Hound Dog Taylor discography and is everything fans
had hoped it would be. Hats off to Alligator for working
so hard to get this one on the shelves.
(Jeff Harris)
|
Fillmore Slim:
Funky Mama's House (Fedora)
Jimmy Dawkins: Tell
Me Baby (Fedora)
Over
the last few years the tiny Fedora label has been
issuing some exceptional blues from a wide variety
of bluesman both renowned and obscure. They seem to
have slowed down in recent years but the latest albums
show they're still committed to putting outing real
deal blues with plenty of grit and soul. "Funky
Mama's House" is a welcome return for the little
recorded Fillmore Slim who issued the excellent "Other
Side of the Road" for the label back in 2000.
Jimmy Dawkins is well known to blues fans with a career
stretching back to the 50's when along with Otis Rush
and Magic Sam he was a hot young upstart on Chicago's
West Side. "Tell Me Baby" is a fine follow
up to 2002's top notch "West Side Guitar Hero."
Fillmore
Slim has managed to balance two careers- one as a
bluesman and the other as a well known pimp, star
of the 1999 documentary American Pimp. While
he hasn't achieved such legendary status as a bluesman
it may be only a matter of time. "Funky Mama's
House" is Slim's third full length record including
the tough to find "Born To Sing The Blues"
plus a handful of 45's cut back in the early days
for Dootoo, Kent, Dore and others. Slim plays in raw,
juke joint fashion with plenty of grease and soul
backed with what is essentially the Fedora house band.
Many of the tunes have an autobiographical bent including
the funky title track that kicks things off as Slim
relates a true tale of being evicted and kicked to
the curb, the insistent shuffle of the down-home "Street
Walker", surly something Slim knows something
about, and "Down At Eli's" a rocking tribute
to the legendary Eli Mile High Club and long time
friend and owner Troyce Key. Slim goes back to his
New Orleans hometown for an impassioned reading of
Earl King's "Those Lonely, Lonely Nights",
Lee Dorsey's "Ya-Ya" and "Earl King",
a moving tribute to to one of his early heroes.
Jimmy
Dawkins' slashing, passionate brand of Chicago blues
hasn't been well presented on record in the 80's and
90's and he's never managed to recapture the fire
of his early Delmark records like the classic "Fast
Fingers" (69') and "All for Business"
(71'). "West Side Guitar Hero", his 2002
debut for Fedora was his best in some time and "Tell
Me Baby" may be even better featuring the same
core band: Frank Goldwasser on guitar, John Suhr on
organ, and Chris Millar on drums and producing. Like
the previous record, Dawkins sounds lean and mean
here with his muscular, ringing big toned guitar work
right out front and his impassioned singing cutting
right to the bone. The record stumbles at first with
the production on "Tell Me Baby" burying
Dawkins in the mix but things get better by the second
tune and the rest of the record steamrolls along in
tough Chicago blues fashion. Dawkins stretches out
on the brooding "Falling Tears", tears through
the instrumental "Kotten Field Jump" at
a blistering clip, while the tough emotionally wracked
"Mean Ol' Blues" and the funky backbeat
of "Gitar King" with it's incendiary guitar
solos recapture the intensity of Dawkins' glory days.
Dawkins closes out on a high note with the aptly titled
"Rumping 'N' Stomping" a high powered blues
boogie and the minor key burner "Hard Life Blues."
If
you like your blues raw and unadulterated than Fedora
has what your looking for. Both these records come
recommended with a special nod to the Dawkins which
may be one of the year's best.
-Check
out these related links:
Fedora
Website
Jimmy
Dawkins: West Side Guitar Hero Review
(Jeff
Harris)
|
Escaping The
Delta: Robert Johnson And The Invention Of The
Blues By Elijah Wald (Amistad)
I
know what your thinking - Robert Johnson again?
Hasn't everything possible been written already?
Well not really as author Elijah Wald thoughtfully
ruminates on the most famous of all bluesman
seeking to put Johnson in his proper historical
context and strip away the layers of misinformation,
mythology and just plain fantasy that has surrounded
him since his untimely death in 1938. Wald is
after bigger things than just myth busting and
in "Escaping the Delta" Wald delivers
a heavily researched, well reasoned revisionist
history of the blues that discards many of our
most ingrained views of the music we love.
The
central themes of the book can been seen in
two parts: How is it that Robert Johnson's music
is now "widely hailed as the greatest and
most important blues ever recorded" when
Wald makes the case that in fact he "was
an extremely minor figure, and very little happened
in the decades following his death would have
been affected if he had ever played a note."
This brings us to Wald's second theme which
is that much about our notion of what the blues
is is misinformed. Wald hammers home the point
that blues was once popular music: "its
evolution as a style, and the career paths of
most of it's significant artists, were driven
not by elite, cult tastes, but by the trends
of mainstream black buyers" and "the
artists we most admire often shared the mass
tastes we despise and dreamed not of enduring
artistic reputations but of contemporary pop
stardom." The people who determined what
blues is and who the important artists are (almost
all white) were far removed from blues culture
and their views bear little in common with those
who created and listened to the music.
The blues was "working-class pop
music" and like the artists of today the
early bluesman were looking for hits. The early
stars were not the blues artists we worship
today like Charlie Patton, Son House and Robert
Johnson but a more mainstream breed. The first
stars were the woman blues queens of the 20's
like Bessie Smith, Sara Marin and Ida Cox with
the popularity of rural male bluesman only coming
after the enormous success of Blind Lemon Jefferson
in 1926. The next blues trend would produce
a more hip, urbane style epitomized by hugely
influential stars like Leroy Carr, Tampa Red
and Lonnie Johnson. The numbers bear this out
and between 1920-1942 Wald cites these examples:
Tampa Red cut 251 sides, Leroy Carr cut 120
(if not for his untimely death in 1935 his number
would be higher) and Lonnie Johnson with 191.
Blues was the popular, hip music of the day
but the blues audience and musicians listened
and played a much wider spectrum of music than
is usually thought. So called blues musicians
had wide repertoires that included pop, ethnic
music, country, gospel, basically playing whatever
suited the audience and could earn them a living.
Likewise Wald offers strong evidence that the
so called blues audience had equally wide tastes.
It's this historical context that Wald
seeks to place Johnson and indeed Johnson's
music was squarely in this tradition. The demon
haunted, sold-his-soul-to-the-devil view of
Johnson is strictly a white invention. The idea
that the music of Robert Johnson wa somehow
more authentic than the music of Leroy Carr
and Lonnie Johnson was again strictly a white
conceit and the bias against these more mainstream
artists still holds strong today. "Until
the 1960's Johnson's name was all but forgotten"
and it was a minority of white fans that crowned
him King of the Delta Blues Singers,
a title prominently displayed on the first LP
to reissue Johnson's recordings which hit the
market in 1961. Paradoxically few blacks even
to this day will recognize Johnson's name. As
Wald makes clear in the five chapters devoted
to Johnson, he was very much a man of his time.
He learned directly from the records of the
popular artists of the day like the aforementioned
Tampa Red, Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr plus
other hot recording artists like Kokomo Arnold
and Peetie Wheatstraw. His brilliance was in
how he borrowed, adapted, synthesized and added
his own flourish to the music of those who came
before him. Wald's writing on Johnson is some
of the best written and his detailed breakdown
and analysis of Johnson's songs should be required
reading for all blues devotees.
Yes
this book is controversial but it's also a major
work that should be read by all blues aficionados.
Wald blazes many new and fascinating trails
and burns more than a few bridges along the
way. "Escaping the Delta" will no
doubt join the pantheon of seminal blues books
and will no doubt be the spark for many important
blues works to come.
(Jeff
Harris)
|
Eric Clapton: Me And
Mr Johnson (Reprise)
You
could say that Robert Johnson has been the hellhound
on Clapton's trail, one who's influence has dogged
him his entire life. I suppose it was inevitable that
we would get "Me And Mr Johnson", Clapton's
earnest tribute to Robert Johnson.
No
blues artist has been more mythologized, romanticized
and simply misunderstood than Robert Johnson. There's
no denying his genius but Johnson was not the brooding,
demon haunted figure so many, including Clapton, seem
to want him to be. His music very much in the tradition
of the current blues scene and and his music bears
the unmistakable influence of the popular blues artists
of his day like Leroy Carr, Lonnie Johnson, Peetie
Wheatstraw and Kokomo Arnold. So why aren't these
artists as revered as Johnson? It seems the very fact
that they were popular is held against them where
as Johnson, who was not popular during his era, and
only cut 29 songs, is somehow considered more authentic.
Johnson's myth is an invention of collectors and white
60's era rockers like Clapton. With this album Clapton
is still perpetuating that myth and as he said in
a recent NPR interview: "Amongst all of his peers
I felt he was the one that was talking from his soul
without really compromising for anybody." It's
comments like that that relegate the above great artists
to the back burner. Still it's clear Clapton's affection
for Johnson is real and the best of Johnson's songs
have easily stood the test of time.
Clapton has paid tribute to Johnson throughout his
career as on "Ramblin' on My Mind" on his
classic album with John Mayall, Bluesbreakers, "Four
Until Late" on the first Cream album and perhaps
most memorably, his fiery version of "Crossroads"
on Cream's
"Wheels of Fire."
This time out Clapton tackles 14 Johnson numbers backed
by a fine band that includes drummer Steve Gadd, Billy
Preston on piano and organ, Doyle Bramhall II on guitar
and Jerry Portnoy on harmonica. This is not a bad
album by any means but given Clapton's reverence for
Johnson, it's a strangely passionless one. Perhaps
it's a bit too reverent, as Clapton seems afraid to
tinker to much with these songs. That's odd because
many of the songs were ones Johnson reworked from
other artists and is something all great bluesman
do. A successful example of this was Peter Green's
2000 Johnson tribute "Hot Foot Powder" which
turned Johnson's songs around with new arrangements
but still captured the spirit and beauty of his music.
Clapton's arrangements come off a bit stiff on songs
like "When You Got A Good Friend" and "Little
Queen Of Spades." Clapton
just can't deliver the emotional commitment and longing
particularly on songs
like "Come On In My Kitchen", one of Johnson's
most moving numbers and the haunting unease of "Hellhound
On My Trail." More successful are his romping,
good time version of "Last Fair Deal Gone Down",
the jaunty shuffles of "Stop Breakin' Down Blues"
and "32-20 Blues."
Clapton
has remained one of Johnson's most ardent and famous
admirers but "Me And Mr Johnson" comes across
as surprisingly lackluster. For many Clapton can do
no wrong, just look at the top of the Billboard charts
where this new one currently resides.
(Jeff
Harris)
|
Jody Williams:
You Left Me In The Dark (Evidence)
There
wasn't a more celebrated comeback than Jody
Williams' return from obscurity a few years
ago. 2002's aptly titled "Return of
a Legend" delivered on all counts and
was hands down one of the year's best garnering
a well deserved W.C. Handy Award for Comeback
Blues Album of the Year. "You
Left Me In The Dark" proves that record
was no fluke as Williams sounds every bit
as assured on this equally stunning follow-up.
During
the 50's Williams was one of the hottest
session guitarists on the scene whose stinging
lead work can be heard on records by Billy
Boy Arnold, Bo Diddley, Otis Spann, Howlin'
Wolf and others. He also cut a handful of
brilliant singles that have gained cult-like
status over the years like "Lucky Lou"
(the inspiration for the classic "All
Your Love"), "Moanin' For Molasses",
"You May", "Looking for My
Baby" plus a few others for small labels,
nothing of which clicked commercially. Williams
became disillusioned with the music business
and went to work at Xerox where he retired
in 1994. He began to think about getting
back into music and in 1999, and at the
urging of producer Dick Shurman, he went
to a blues club for the first time in many,
many years to see his old friend Robert
Lockwood, Jr.. He began playing some gigs
in 2000 and 2001 and at the urging of Shurman
recorded his comeback in 2002. "You
Left Me In The Dark", again produced
by Shurman, is another winner and every
bit as good as his first.
This
is another well produced outing and William's
stinging, jazz inflected guitar work sounds
as unpredictable and fresh as ever. This
time out the guest artists have been pared
down to just two old friends: Robert Lockwood
Jr. and Lonnie Brooks. Also helping out
are guitarist Billy Flynn and a knockout
horn section arranged by the great Willie
Henderon and featuring the fine tenor of
Hank Ford who helped out so ably on Williams'
first record. All but one of the tunes are
originals as Williams dusts off some of
his older numbers like a swinging remake
of his 1957 gem "What Kind of Gal Is
That?", a smoking update of the instrumental
"Hideout" a song he first waxed
in 1962 and the rollicking "Looking
For My Baby" among his earliest recording
going back to 1955 when he was billed as
Little Papa Joe. Lockwood duets on vocal
and guitar on the shuffling jive of "I
Can't Get You Off My Mind" and the
slinky mid tempo of "I'll Be There"
with a particularly fine jazzy solo from
Lockwood who sounds mighty nimble for a
man pushing 90. Brooks adds his trademark
swamp funk to the pulsing "She Got
A Spell On Me" and sounds particularly
soulful on the lowdown "Someone Else."
There's plenty more highlights like the
minor key, latin tinged title track "You
Left Me In The Dark", the simmering
"Don't Get Caught Sleeping In My Bed"
with some remarkably lyrical guitar work
and the stomping Chicago shuffle of the
humorous "Young Men Don't Know"
as Williams cuts loose with a torrent of
jazzy, stinging guitar lines. Williams also
proves himself a solid singer delivering
his blues with a reedy, conversational style
although the more soulful style he attempts
on Sam Cooke's "Nothing Can Change
This Love" doesn't really suit him.
Jody
Williams is no longer in comeback mode,
he's back full time. "You Left Me In
The Dark" is another gem from a great
blues guitar slinger who has plenty of new
tricks to show this younger generation of
wannabe blues heroes.
-Check
out these related links:
Jody
Williams: Return of a Legend Review
(Jeff
Harris)
|
|
|
|
