I have loved Big Walter's music for almost as long as I have loved the blues. Through most of those years, The Soul of Blues Harmonica had been a rumor. Like too many blues fans, if I'd heard of that LP at all, it was because it had been mentioned in passing. It remains one of the blues' Blessed Obscurities.If there was ever a bluesman in screaming need of the "comprehensive boxed set" treatment, it would have to be Walter Horton (though I suspect Roberts Lockwood and Nighthawk would be right behind him in that category).
Horton was recorded prolifically throughout his career, usually behind someone else, and making any sense of those disparate sides and Horton's own discography can prove a daunting, dizzying task. Walter's albums as a bandleader often remain off the radar and some of even his best-regarded efforts can prove uneven affairs. That The Soul of Blues Harmonica continues to successfully evade anything like actual notice strikes me as just short of exasperating. Even as routine an exercise as researching this album proved a confounding mix of scant information and sideways mentions. While the LP had been released on cassette, it appears it has yet to see issue on CD. And I'm only halfway sure about that. Most of the citations I managed to come across report the album's release date as January 13, 1964, which is wrong. Horton's discography has him recording half the LP on that same Jan. 13th and cutting the remaining tracks on the 24th.The album was released to little notice at a time when the only thing certain was change. At that time, no one knew how things were going to work out. JFK had been assassinated only two months before and, only 5 months later, three Civil Rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in one of the era's most notorious incidents. On Jan. 23rd, just a day before Horton finished the material for this album, the 24th Amendment abolished the Poll Tax, which had been around for a century and had been specifically designed to keep poor Southern blacks from their votes. In July, Pres. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most sweeping civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction.
Beyond their obvious vested interest in the Civil Rights Movement, it was a dynamic and confusing time for the bluesmen as well. The so-called Golden Age of the Chicago Blues had ebbed. Rock and R&B/Soul were re-writing the popular music map by the week. The folk and country blues revival was reaching its zenith and the outriders of Chicago's West Side (Magic Sam, Freddie King, etc.) were starting to attract notice. In 1964, the LP itself was still in its infancy and the concept of "an album" as opposed to a "collection of singles" was only just then being realized in fits and starts. Concert recordings had begun to pop up and it wasn't the least bit uncommon to see track lists that were heavy on the instrumentals (the was, after all, the era of Freddie King's work on Federal and of Booker T & the MG's, etc.).
When Chess subsidiary Argo released The Soul of Blues Harmonica, it marked Horton's debut as a bandleader. While not its best document, this album was cut while Walter was at the pinnacle of his powers and history has treated it unfairly as a result. It is a good, at times very good, LP and it suffered the misfortune of being recorded when Walter was serving up greatness. Chess was first, last, and always a business and in 1964, it was a business frantically trying to keep up with the rapidly changing tastes of its core market. The Soul of Blues Harmonica barely caused a ripple and it was left to wither on the vine.
If the album does suffer by comparisons to the material Walter was also cutting in this time-frame, it was flatly eclipsed by his contributions to Vanguard's Chicago/The Blues/Today! trilogy, cut in December of the following year. It was a relative success, and deservedly so, and likely helped insure The Soul of Blues Harmonica would remain buried behind it. On the Vanguard release, while Horton may have been blowing in turns behind Johnny Young and Johnny Shines (as well as contributing a single instrumental duet with his young protege, "Memphis" Charlie Musselwhite), that third disc was all about Horton and he provided some of the best harp work of his career on it. To paraphrase Ben Franklin, that LP was proof that Big Walter loved us.I would be among the first to concede that The Soul of Blues Harmonica is inferior to much of the material surrounding it. I would still quickly insist that this distinction is one of comparing "good" to "great." And The Soul of Blues Harmonica is a good album. There is much here to leave you feeling it. Horton's trademark fluidity and subtlety of phrasing is in ample evidence throughout these 10 tracks and the album acquits both its age and obscurity in fine fashion.
Groove Walk, the LP's opener, has the smoky feel of an after-hours jam in a side-street nowhere tavern. Fine as it is, it strikes me as too introspective a piece to start things off with. It's a nit-picky criticism on my part, but whether we're talking about a blues album or a novel, I want to be grabbed by the grapes coming through the door. Wee Baby accomplishes that task quite nicely. It is a moody cut with an engaging tempo...and much of it would show up the following year on Junior Wells' seminal Hoodoo Man Blues album as the foundation for Junior's cutely-titled (and superior) In the Wee Hours. Buddy Guy's guitar work would prove crucial to both albums.
At first blush, I thought the inclusion of Hard-Hearted Woman and La Cucaracha would prove a let-down. They deservedly rank among Walter's best-known tunes and he cut them repeatedly. I figured, with only 10 precious cuts to begin with, I'd have preferred those precious slots to have gone to a tasty obscurity rather than something already so ubiquitous. I was wrong. In context, this LP would have represented the first (and astute) attempt to capture these essentials in an album format. My childish reservations were misplaced as both cuts are wonderfully rendered and supply a welcome balance to this disc.
Walter gained a reputation throughout his career for taking folk and "traditonal" tunes into whole other places, sometimes reforming them into blues, sometimes not, but always re-imagining them into something memorable (e.g. Careless Love, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, and the aforementioned Cucaracha). With Walter's dope-smoking cockroach, we're afforded a trio of such tunes here and they all prove to be among the album's higher points. Friday night Stomp is essentially the band riffing the When the Saints Go Marching In theme into an energetic groove. While Friday Night Stomp is fun, John Henry is a delight. With Walter, Buddy, and Company, the folk mainstay is transformed into swinging, at times balls-out instrumental romp. This ain't your momma's John Henry.Even for a Big Walter album, this one ranks heavy on the instrumentals. Given the material offered, that ain't even a bad thing. Technically speaking, only 4 of the album's 10 tracks feature vocals--and half of those are provided courtesy of Willie Dixon. Gonna Bring it On Home is interesting, but Good Moanin' Blues is downright scary. Dixon's vocals there are restricted to his moans, not an intelligible word is spoken, and it ends up being an emotive wonder.
Inauspicious as this debut album may have been, its strengths outstrip its shortcomings in good order. The Soul of Blues Harmonica comes by its reputation as a minor classic honestly. It remains one of the blues' hidden gems.
Peace, Mudcatz
The Soul of Blues Harmonica
LPS-4037
Argo, 1964
Groove Walk
Wee Baby Blues
It's Alright
Wrinkles
Hard Hearted Woman
John Henry
Good Moanin' Blues*
Friday Night Stomp
Gonna Bring It On Home*
La Cucaracha
*Willie Dixon, vocals
Big Walter Horton, harmonica, vocals
Buddy Guy, guitar
Jack Myers, bass
Bobby Buster, organ
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, drums
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