Tag Archives: Blues

Dec14

Ry Cooder Performs ‘Crazy ‘Bout An Automobile’

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Source: rollingstone.com via Kirk on Pinterest

Here’s a clip of roots music archivist, film composer, world music ambassador, and slide-guitar superhero Ry Cooder with a 1987 performance of Billy ‘the Kid’ Emerson’s “Crazy ‘Bout an Automobile” in Santa Cruz, California, a town which Cooder incorporates cleverly into the narrative for this particular performance.  The studio version of this song can be found on his 1980 album Borderline.

This tune is a quintessential rock ‘n’ roll song, full of sexual vigour, and with a touch of Tex-Mex and Zydeco flavouring heating things up even more.  The band here is stellar, including stalwart session drummer Jim Keltner, Van Dyke Parks on keyboards, Flaco Jimenez  on accordion, among others.  The calibre of the playing certainly helps to attain a funky groove about being horny and being down and out without wheels at the same time. This is ripe subject matter for rock ‘n’ roll, drawing a distinct correlation between the two.

Ry Cooder himself is a fascinating musical figure, being something of a boy-genius when it came to the guitar and many other stringed instruments when he started out. Before the 1960s had concluded he’d worked with Jackie DeShannon, Taj Mahal, and the Rolling Stones. By the 1970s, Cooder built a career as a gatherer of R&B, folk, and pop gems from decades past, and re-positioning them in new contexts.  His slide playing became his trademark, as did his ability to repurpose old songs, many of them minor hits and forgotten treasures into a succession of celebrated albums, like Boomer’s Story and (my favourite) Paradise and Lunch.  His 1979 Bop ‘Til You Drop LP was the first major label album ever to be recorded digitally.

Yet this would be merely a stage in his career.  His 1980s work eventually turned to scoring films, the most high profile being the evocative and impressionistic score for the film Paris, Texas starring Harry Dean Stanton who also sings on the soundtrack, and with contributions from fellow stringed-instrument mage David Lindley.  He would also score the film Crossroads, a film which also concerned itself with blues folklore, making Cooder something of a logical choice as film composer.

Apart from his work with John Hiatt, Jim Keltner, and Nick Lowe as the short-lived Little Village,  Cooder would have a third phase of his career by the 1990s with world music albums featuring Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, and later with a group of Cuban musicians later to be known as the Buena Vista Social Club.  This  latter project would make stars out of all participants, with a smash hit album and a celebrated film by Wim Wenders, profiling the story of how Cooder discovered a group of masterclass, and very elderly, Cuban musicians and brought them into the limelight at Carnegie Hall in 1998.

But overall, Cooder is a phenomenal guitarist and arranger, incorporating an incredible stew of influences to take old material and make it shine in a new context while not betraying the original spirit out of which it was born.  That’s a skill that isn’t to be underestimated, and in this Cooder is one of the best at wielding it.

For more information, check out the Ry Cooder MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Nov23

Otis Rush Sings “I Can’t Quit You Baby”

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Here’s a clip of soulful blues belter Otis Rush with a version of his 1956 single on the Cobra label ” I Can’t Quit You Baby”, a landmark in his career that established him as a first-tier Chicago blues artist along with kindred spirits Buddy Guy and Albert King.

With his powerful voice, and stinging left-handed  guitar work, Otis Rush began his career as a hitmaker on the Cobra label, recording with Ike Turner, and scoring several R&B hits, including this one, from 1956-59.  Today, Rush’s talent drastically outweighs his fame. Yet his early singles on the Cobra label established his voice in electric blues scenes in Chicago and beyond.

And “I Can’t Quit You Baby” is a song that would become a part of the blues canon because of its unprecedented intensity. Led Zeppelin’s version of ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby“ on their first album in 1968 brought the song to a mainstream rock audience. This band who borrowed so heavily from other blues musicians and their songs sticks pretty close to the Otis Rush’s here, perhaps because they had yet to make their name, or maybe that they saw no way to improve it.

After all, listen to Rush’s performance on the clip.  Get a load of that opening note that immediately rivets the audience to their seats, pulling their eyes and ears stageward.  This is as powerful as any rock performance, and Rush seems to be able to pull this out of himself with very little effort, making his presentation something to behold.

Otis Rush embodies something here which was true to his generation as an electric blues elder statesman.  I find much of the electric blues genre in modern times to be slavish, and very often plain erstatz. Yet, Rush is the real thing, exuding confidence, showing mastery while never showboating, and putting across a performance based around his material, as opposed to one based around a set of aesthetics that have become associated with blues performance .

Rush’s powerful and confident guitar chops influenced the playing of both Eric Clapton and Mike Bloomfield.  And let’s not forget fellow lefty guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who would later go on to influence even more guitarists of both blues and rock persuasions alike.

Otis Rush continued to record and perform until a 2004 stroke took him off of the road.

For more information, check out the Otis Rush MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Aug20

Hound Dog Taylor Sings ‘Give Me Back My Wig’

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Listen to this song by late-blooming bluesman and slide guitar-slinger Hound Dog Taylor.  It’s the oddly titled ‘Give Me Back My Wig’ as taken from Hound Dog’s 1970 debut Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers on the label that was created in order to put it out; the now-legendary Chigago-based Alligator Records.

Hound Dog Taylor (neé Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, no less) was born in 1915 Mississippi, with a presidential moniker and six fingers on his left hand.   His first record was put out in 1970, making him something of an undiscovered treasure when it comes to electric blues.  He clearly draws from Elmore James, both in his vocal delivery and in his scrappy slide playing.  Yet, his onstage energy and personality quickly gained him a following of his own.

Hound Dog moved to Chicago in 1942, where he made a name for himself as a club act.  His command of the blues allowed him to make a few singles in the 50s and 60s, plus a few radio appearances.  But, by 1970, Hound Dog was able to connect with the electric blues festival circuits and revival package tours that had helped folk-blues artists a few years before.  In some ways, the timing was just right for him.

This tune in particular was one of his best-known numbers, and is something of a meat-and-potatoes 12-bar blues which is more than the sum of its parts because of Taylor’s personality which shines through.  This is not to mention the tough-as-nails backing courtesy of the Houserockers, notable for supporting Hound Dog’s slide by means of only a second guitar and a drum kit.  Jon Spencer, eat your heart out.

Hound Dog was also known for his use of cheap guitars, and an almost punk rock approach to the blues, with minimalist arranging and limited soloing.  To me, it’s kind of ironic that his debut album was the flagship record for the birth of Alligator records, which to my ears have taken to building a catalogue of slickly produced contemporary blues and one dimensional blues-rock that is a little light on personality.

At the time of his death from lung cancer in 1975, Hound Dog was actively touring, yet having only released his third LP, the live document Beware of the Dog in 1973.  A fourth was released in the early 80s, by which time he’d become the inspiration to many a young blues fan including one George Thorogood of “Bad to the Bone” fame.

For more information, check out the Hound Dog Taylor MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Aug12

David Lindley Plays ‘Tijuana’

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Listen to this song by virtuoso stringed instrument-collecting savant David Lindley.  It’s ‘Tijuana’ a flamenco-styled folk tale, only one of many styles at which Lindley is skilled.

David Lindley’s chops have been utilized while playing with musicians as varied as Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, The Bottle Rockets, and the Bangles, among many others.  This doesn’t include his work with Ry Cooder as well, a fellow slide guitar player and folk music archivist.   His best known song, ‘Mercury Blues’ is in many ways only a fraction of his musical interests.  Where that song holds the banner of blues rock pretty high, Lindley’s mastery of the blues is really only an extension of his interest in folk music all over the world.

It helps of course that Lindley is exceptionally skilled at a variety of stringed instruments from the lap steel guitar to the bouzouki.   This allows him access to all manner of textures when putting across his material.  In seeing him recently at the Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival, I was taken on an excursion of North Africa, Greece, the Appalachians, and the Mississippi Delta during the course of a single number.

In this, Lindley’s musical patch is about making a connection between cultures, and a hint that the blues and other Western folk music, however you think of these musical forms, are far older and more widespread across cultural lines than you previously may have suspected.  When listening to Lindley’s set at the festival, it was like being lifted up to a high place where I could see that the lines dividing musical traditions are purely illusory.  It was like the realization  that the world beneath me was one land, one nation, one musical world.

For information on tour dates, and a tour of Lindley’s collection of exotic musical instruments, check out davidlindley.com.

Enjoy!

May25

Harry Manx Plays “The Gist of Madhuvanti/The Thrill Is Gone”

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How do you get from traditional Indian raga music to early 70s electrified blues in one move? Listen to this song by Canadian blues-roots-world music purveyor Harry Manx. It’s his arrangement of B.B King’s “The Thrill is Gone” fused with his own Indian folk style raga “The Gist of Madhuvanti”.  The piece is taken from Manx’s 2005 album Road Ragas Live.

This song of course was a major hit for B.B King, full of biting Gibson electric guitar, thanks to B.B’s Lucille. And Manx takes the lush minor chords and attaches seamlessly to a raga.  Manx is an adept guitarist, and 5-string banjo player.  And Manx plays  an instrument on this which you may not have heard of, too.

Manx has a few tricks up his sleeve that makes the transition from Indian music to blues seem easy.  Part of it is his interest, and his background in playing the blues in its purer form.  Another is his extensive five year training in India, and the study of an instrument he discovered there – the mohan veena, which is a cross between a six string guitar and a sitar.  It is a twenty-stringed instrument, with some of the strings not being played so much as accompanying the player by droning when other strings are played.

One of the great things about the blues is that it can often fool you into thinking that it’s pretty one dimensional.  But, what the blues does best, aside from evoking some pretty primal musical impulses in audiences and players,  is to create a framework for other stylistic possibilities too.  After all, that how R&B developed, and in turn how rock ‘n’ roll was born too.  Manx extends this potential here, not only by taking it to another style, but also to other musical notation systems.

Manx isn’t the first artist to explore this mostly uncharted sonic region.  Legendary British guitarist Davy Graham commonly turned to Indian music, and music from many other parts of the world and fused it with Western folk music, most notably in his “Blue Raga”, which marries Big Bill Broonzy with Indian classical music.  Yet, Manx brings his own personality to this, a certain warmth and affection for two traditions, and to music itself.  This is what shines through, and makes this music more than just an academic exercise or a simple novelty.

For more about Harry Manx, check out the Harry Manx MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Feb12

Magic Sam Performs ’21 Days in Jail’

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Listen to this song by R&B kingpin Magic Sam.  It’s ’21 Days in Jail’, a rollicking little number about being down and out and scared out of your wits while doing time.  You can find this genre-defying gem on the compilation album With a Feeling 57-66: The Cobra, Chief & Crash Recordings.

If you thought that the barrier between  R&B and country music in the 1950s and 60s was only being scaled by white people, this ought to set you straight.  Where Sam had cut a number of straight-ahead West side Chicago-style blues, this one is pure Memphis rockabilly even if it wasn’t recorded there.  Chess Records’ linchpin Willie Dixon co-wrote and played bass on this,  but I could swear it was Elvis bassist Bill Black instead.

Magic Sam was both an innovator and a developing artist at the same time, it seems to me.  On the one hand, he stuck to a specific template when it came to his early recordings.  His debut single “All of your love”, was in many ways reproduced with only subtle variation on ensuing singles like “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright”.  But, then he’d come out with something like this, which seems to work in an opposite direction from where you might expect. During his brief career, Sam would also incorporate pop music, soul, and other textures into his brand of blues, which helped to expand the possibilities of the genre.

Sam would only enjoy the beginnings of a world-dominating career, dying young at the age of 32 of a heart attack.  Yet his sides for the Cobra label, and the impact he had on contemporary bluesmen like Buddy Guy, and a new generation of blues guitarists who also incorporate country music influences into their playing like Stevie Ray Vaughn would immortalize him.

For more music, check out this Magic Sam MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Feb1

Muddy Waters Performs ‘Mannish Boy’

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Here’s a  clip of Chicago blues elder statesman and natchel born lover’s man McKinely Morganfield, better known as the immortal Muddy Waters, good people.   This is ‘Mannish Boy’, this version taken from Muddy’s 1977 comeback album Hard Again.

The blues has had its ups and downs in the popularity stakes over the years.  And for those not versed in the blues, it’s easy perhaps to dismiss it as simplistic, which may be one of the reasons why so many bluesmen faltered as rock music grew in stature in the 60s and 70s.  In contrast, the blues seemed too basic for many.  Ultimately, this comes down to how one feels about the basics, I suppose.  And on Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy”, that’s what we’re confronted with – the bare bones basics that has fed blues, soul, rock, and to a large extent hip hop too.  One person’s ‘basic’ is another person’s elemental.

This tune is pure bravado, not unlike Bo Diddley’s very similar “I’m A Man”, which covers the same territory.  Muddy had recorded this tune before, but this version under the watchful eye of producer and blues disciple Johnny Winter, has become the definitive version of the song.  Winter had spent his whole life idolizing Waters, much like many blues rock musicians.  Yet, when Muddy left Chess Records, Winter was the one who was instrumental in getting him a new contract on Blue Sky records, a sub-label of Columbia.  Additionally, a band partially comprised of some of Waters’ 50s cohorts – most notably James Cotton and Pinetop Perkins – was assembled for the Hard Again sessions.

Of course, the effort paid off.  This is a seminal blues album, both as towering in its delivery as any rock album as well as being true to its roots which are arguably centuries old.  Achieving this balance was always Muddy Waters’ strength.   Here in particular, as Muddy and his band are in a one-chord-one-riff-call-and-response mode, we can hear what is typical of African music and early plantation labourer work songs.   But this being Muddy Waters, everything is electrified in every sense, with Winter’s and Waters’ sideman Bob Margolin‘s enthusiastic hollers through out.

Despite the rawness of this track, there’s something about it that’s epic too and as such can be looked upon as representative of the blues form itself.  This is the sound of Moses coming down from the mountain, good people!  It’s no wonder it’s been used in countless films, most notably by Martin Scorsese, who’s used it multiple times  in Goodfellas, The Color of Money, and of course The Last Waltz when Muddy performed it live.

Muddy’s comeback would be short-lived.  By the end of the 70s, his health was in decline and in 1983 he was gone.  But, he didn’t make his exit before one last burst of undeniable greatness.  And this is it!

For more music and information, check out the Muddy Waters MySpace page.

Enjoy

Jan29

Dale Hawkins Sings “Suzie Q”

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Listen to this song by rockabilly foot soldier and R&B crossover phenomenon Dale Hawkins.  It’s “Suzie Q”, his hit from 1958 as taken from the album Oh Suzie Q, soon to be covered by the Rolling Stones on their 1964 12×5 album, and even more famously by Credence Clearwater Revival.

Hawkins would not be the only one in his family to give birth to new strains of rock music. His cousin Ronnie Hawkins from Arkansas would move his brand of fiery R&B north to Toronto and form the Hawks, who would leave him to back an electrified Bob Dylan, and then subsequently become the Band.

Dale Hawkins hails from Louisiana, and brings something of the swamp to this rockabilly blues number, the song which would make him a star.  Hawkins was one of the only white artists on the Chess Records label, laying down some of the dirtiest rockabilly guitar, and primitive bluesy stomps ever commited to vinyl, while clearly under the influence of labelmate Bo Diddley.

Hawkins’ sound attracted a number of guitar luminaries to his side.  Some of these included Roy Buchannan, Elvis Presley sideman Scotty Moore, and another great  guitarist who would later play with Presley, James Burton, who plays the central riff here on this song.

If ever there was a case for the benefits of  ‘more cowbell’,  then “Suzie Q” is certainly exhibit A.  In addition to standard rockabilly instrumentation, the song is driven forward by the clatter of the cowbell.  To my ears, this makes it a bit edgy, and unpredictable somehow, and the song comes off as even more lustful in turn.

The song embodies the core nature of rock ‘n’ roll, tracing it back to its origins in the blues, and adding in a bit of country swagger at the same time.  Additionally, Hawkins added some of the percussive sounds of Louisiana folk music into his sonic stew.  And  in mixing these elements together, Hawkins became one of the architects of Swamp Rock or Swamp Boogie, a style which influenced later artists such as Tony Joe White, J.J Cale, and Little Feat.  It’s no wonder that back-to-basics CCR chose it as a cover version, later to have a hit with it.

Dale Hawkins would make modest success of his career, with ‘Suzie Q” being his greatest achievement.  He continued to champion rock music as a TV host (‘The Dale Hawkins Show”) and as a producer.

Dale Hawkins has been inducted into both the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

He still performs today.

For more music and information about Dale Hawkins, check out the Dale Hawkins MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Jan12

Jimmy Reed Sings ‘Shame Shame Shame’

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Here’s a clip of Blues and R&B giant Jimmy Reed with his 1963 song ‘Shame Shame Shame’, which like so many  of his other tunes became standard set favourites during the British R&B boom in the 1960s.

Reed’s voice is a quite idiosyncratic sleepy mumble,  making him instantly recognizable. And his delivery here is perfect.  This is the tale of a man done wrong by his woman, and clearly the worse for wear because of it.  Of course, Reed’s own state of being probably helped the performance quite a bit.

This is one of his least successful singles, yet it’s one of my favourites. By ’63, Jimmy Reed had a string of big hits including ‘Bright Lights, Big City’, ‘Honest I Do’, ‘Baby, What You Want Me To Do’, and many others, having made a name for himself on the Vee-Jay label and being, for a time, a big seller on both the R&B and pop charts.  But, his success would never match that of other blues artists in the long-term, possibly due to health problems and personal issues which included alcoholism.  At one point, his memory for lyrics became so bad even during recording sessions, that his wife had to whisper the words in his ear as the tape rolled.  On some cuts, you can hear her.

Yet Reed had a tremendous impact, not only on British groups like the Rolling Stones (who modeled, some might say stole, this  very song for their own under the title, “Little By Little”), but also on early rock ‘n’ rollers, including Elvis Presley who recorded Reed’s ‘Baby, What You Want Me To Do”.  Even country artists like Charlie Rich and Hank Williams, Jr. had a shot at some of Reed’s songs, once again proving that the barriers between R&B and country aren’t really that insurmountable.  And this ability to put across accessible, and highly interpretable R&B  might be more true of Jimmy Reed than most.

By the mid-70s though, he was ravaged by health problems, including epilepsy.  And even though he had changed tracks and was on the road to making a comeback on the blues revival circuit, his years of hard living and chronic health issues besides caught up with him in August of 1976.  Yet, he’s made his mark as a purveyor of accessible-yet-authentic and highly appealing blues that has inspired multiple generations of players.

For more music, check out this Jimmy Reed MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Dec26

Sonny Boy Williamson Sings “Good Morning Little School Girl”

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Listen to this song from 1937 by bluesman and harmonica pioneer Sonny Boy Williamson I, “Good Morning Little School Girl”.  The song was a monster, a blues standard subsequently recorded by artists ranging from fellow bluesmen John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins, to blues and R&B revival bands like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Yardbirds, to rock acts like the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and Van Morrison, among many, many others.

This song was recorded by the first bluesman to carry the ‘Sonny Boy Williamson’ moniker, John Lee Curtis Williamson, who was a blues harp (that’s blues lingo for ‘harmonica’, of course) player from Jackson, Tennessee, the same Jackson that Johnny Cash and June Carter sang about, and birthplace of first wave rock ‘n’ roll figure Carl Perkins. And this was his first and biggest hit, making a wave on the R&B scene for decades after it was initially recorded in this rural,  folk-blues style.

A second bluesman,  Rice Miller, would take up the name Sonny Boy Williamson (known later as “Sonny Boy Williamson II”) post world war II, and carry it after the first Williamson died in 1948.  But, “Good Morning Little School Girl” would remain in the blues lexicon for good, with the original Williamson’s style changing the way blues harp was played forevermore by everyone.  Blues harmonica players like Little Walter, Sonny Terry, and even non-harp players like Muddy Waters, would be fundamentally influenced by this track, and by Williamson’s work in general.

The song itself changed quite a bit lyrically over the decades, but the basic intent is the same.  The narrator is obsessed with an object of lust forever out of reach, yet the obsession remains.  This of course is a common theme in the blues which would carry over into R&B, rock n’ roll, and in soul music too.  This tune may in fact be one of the earliest templates of this form.  If Sonny Boy Williamson’s take on it seems restrained by modern standards, you might want to take a listen to the more up-to-date version by Buddy Guy who underscores the point a little bit more overtly just by the sheer power of his delivery.

This tune might seem a bit suspect by today’s standards in terms of theme.  But, I don’t think this song is ultimately about anything deviant.  I think this is more about a feeling that love, or lust for that matter, happens to do to someone when an object of affection is out of reach.  That is, it reduces things to a very basic level, where all adult thinking is thrown out the window in favour of the fantasy.  In the Paul Butterfield version, the lyrics are “you can tell your momma and poppa I’m a little school boy too”.  And in a sense, he is.   The primal urge has stripped him of his adulthood in this song, even if the object of his lust isn’t necessarily a literal school girl.

And such I think is the power of the blues; to boil things down to their basics, for good or for ill.

For more information about Sonny Boy Williamson I,  investigate the Wikipedia page dedicated to him.

Enjoy!