Posted on by Rob Jones · 6 Comments

Big Mama Thornton Sings “Ball And Chain” Live With Buddy Guy

ball-and-chain-big-mama-thorntonListen to this track by underappreciated blues and rock architect Big Mama Thornton. It’s “Ball and Chain”, a cut that Thornton wrote in the early 1960s, recorded by the end of that decade and can be heard on the Ball And Chain compilation album. The song provided the runway for her resurgence as a performer at that time, too.

This particular rendition was recorded for public television in 1970, including Buddy Guy and his band behind a very formidable Thornton. The two artists had worked together on live shows in Europe in the mid-sixties, the musical rapport they create here perhaps indicating how simpatico they are. During her intro, Thornton mentions Janis Joplin who also had massive success with this song, inspired as she was by the elder singer’s powerful and heart-wrenching original version. Joplin would later invite Thornton to open shows for her.

Yet, Thornton was the pioneer while Joplin trod her path. This being the music industry, and being our world in general, that path was fraught with perils for someone like Big Mama Thornton. The first casualty was her own fame, or lack thereof. Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Play “Cold Shot”

SRVcouldntstandtheweatherListen to this track by Austin Texas blues-honky-tonk-rock trio Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble. It’s “Cold Shot” a hit single from their 1984 record Couldn’t Stand The Weather, their second as a band. Along with performing well chartwise, the video for it received heavy rotation as well, noted for its humour.

The song was written by W.C Clark, a local Austin blues legend, although by the early to mid-80s, Vaughn had made a name for himself in his own right. Vaughan had been a student of the blues since he was a kid, along with his older brother Jimmie Vaughan. This tune was one of several cover songs on the record, with other songs written by Guitar Slim, Jimmy Reed, and Jimi Hendrix. The blues in these primordial traditions was on the wane in many ways by the early 1980s as far as mainstream audiences went.

So, given that, how did Stevie Ray Vaughan get so big in that era? And, what does this tune represent in the middle of all of that?  Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 3 Comments

Little Walter Performs “My Babe”

Listen to this track by primo blues harpist and bad, bad R&B badass Little Walter.  It’s his signature #1 hit and key R&B statement “My Babe”, originally released as a single in 1955 on the Chess Records label, home of many, many R&B hits, and as featured on numerous blues compilations.  Not too many of them put a woman on a pedestal like this and still retain its balls, of course.

This tune was one of the first Chess sides I’d ever heard, and what a revelation it was.  Just the sound of it unlocked a whole corridor of musical tradition and allowed me new access to forms I’d always felt separated from.  It was the Chess sound that activated blues-rock in the 60s, and hard rock in the 70s. Understanding where all of that came from allowed me to really appreciate where, say, Led Zeppelin had come from too. Read more

Posted on by Rob Jones · 4 Comments

Junior Kimbrough Sings ‘I Cried Last Night’

junior-kimbrough-god-knows-i-triedListen to this song, a slice of primal, primordial blues echoing down from the ages and from across continents.  It’s late-blooming recording artist, and well-traveled bluesman Junior Kimbrough’s “I Cried Last Night” as taken from his 1998 record God Knows I Tried.

David ‘Junior’ Kimbrough hailed from North Mississippi, part of a veritable hotbed of high-profile blues talent that came out of the 1990s such as The North Mississippi All-Stars, and R.L Burnside.  Kimbrough had a long regional career in the area, with good many of his previous recordings being singles, recorded sparingly in the 60s. Besides this limited time in recording studios, there weren’t  many opportunities to build momentum as a consistent recording artist. In the 70s and 80s, he toured local juke joints, but had yet to lay down a full-length album.

It wasn’t until he was discovered in the late 80s by critic, producer and impresario Robert Palmer. His first album was recorded on the Fat Possum label in 1992. His music gained attention of rock bands as well as blues fans, with British band Gomez recording Kimbrough’s ‘Meet Me In the City’ on their 2004 Split the Difference album.  “I Cried Last Night” (borrowing a riff from from Willie Cobb’s “You Don’t Love Me”), and the record it is featured on, was his last hurrah, before dying of a heart attack the year it came out, not before recording six albums. He was 68.

Like John Lee Hooker, Kimbrough’s music shows a clear and shining path back to places like Mali, where the blues was arguably first conceived, if not christened.  And like the best of the blues, it is evocative and otherworldly, evoking a sort of mythical shorthand for emotional connectedness that is attached to the darker corners of the human psyche. But, this is what the blues does best. It’s encapsulates raw emotions, viscerally, and without artifice, crossing cultural barriers with ease.

Like a lot of African music, Kimbrough’s approach to the blues puts emphasis on the drone, with the guitars winding hypnotically in and out of the steady, interlocking rhythm.  Kimbrough’s voice is muddy, indecipherable in places.  It might as well be in another language. And perhaps in some way it is.

For more information, check out the Junior Kimbrough MySpace page.

Enjoy!

Posted on by Rob Jones · 1 Comment

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

otis_rushHere’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 single 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.

Enjoy!

Posted on by Rob Jones · 7 Comments

Hound Dog Taylor Sings ‘Give Me Back My Wig’

hound_dog_taylor_and_the_houserockers_coverListen 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.

Enjoy!

Posted on by Rob Jones

Lightnin’ Hopkins Performs “Mojo Hand”

Here’s a clip of Texas blues legend Lightnin’ Hopkins with a 1962 performance of his hit put out two years previous, “Mojo Hand”.

Sam “Lightnin'”Hopkins was a part of the early 60s folk-boom, although unlike many of his fellows working in the same musical idiom, he was not an artist rescued from obscurity.  Lightnin’ had been a working musician from the 1920s when still a child, recording on a number of labels through the decades before recording this song and the album of the same name, Mojo Hand, on the Fire records label by the early 1960s.

Hopkins had a storied career, and a unique education in the blues, acting initially as a guide to Blind Lemon Jefferson, and subsequently as a partner to his cousin “Texas” Alexander.  After a stretch in Houston County Prison Farm, Hopkins struck out on his own, gaining  the nickname “Lightnin'” after being discovered in the 1940s by a scout from Aladdin Records.  He was teamed with another artist, Wilson Smith  who had been nicknamed “thunder” to match.  After the duo parted ways, the “Lightnin'” stuck.

Much like the approach of many country blues players, Lightnin’ had a self-contained approach to the guitar, playing lead, bass, rhythm, and even percussion lines slapped out on the body of his guitar.   A common drawback was that his sidemen were often confounded by his internal sense of  timing, which was not exactly intuitive to an accompanying musician.  And a song was never played the same way twice.  Record producers often suffered from this phenomenon as well.

Yet, Lightnin’ remained to be a singular and respected voice through the 60s folk-boom and afterward, with his influence on rock guitarists and contemporary blues guitarists including Jimi Hendrix (who also had a self-contained guitar style) and fellow Texan Stevie Ray Vaughn, who’s song “Rude Mood” was based on Lightnin’s “Sky Hop”, a track which would show that Lightnin’ was just as at home with an electric guitar as he was an acoustic.

In 1959, Lightnin’ Hopkins was contacted by a folklorist, a contact which later allowed him to tap into the burgeoning folk scene and find a wider audience. His ability to play in a traditional style, while often improvising lyrics to suit his situation or current states of affairs made him a hit with the folk crowd as much as it had with the Texas club circuits where he’d honed his craft.

Although he’d seen the evolution of the blues through the years, Hopkins managed to hold onto a singular style, characterized by his dexterous playing and his craggy, storyteller’s voice.  He is easily one of my favourite bluesmen.

Lightnin’s career stretched six decades by the end of his life. He died in 1982.

For more music, check out the Lightnin’ Hopkins MySpace Page.

Enjoy!