"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Henry David Thoreau once wrote. He wished to, "front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
To dwell in these north woods is to live deliberately. Divested of most of life's distractions (and many of its conveniences) the act of living requires focus. It is a way of life where focus provides its own banquet of rewards. In these woods a meal does not come in a wrapper. Heat begins with an axe and chopping block. One does not impose one's sense of time on the trees.
It is an exquisite place to live with the ghosts of these bluesfolk and to nurture my lifelong obsession with this most American of music forms. I've used "nurturing my love" to self-justify a quarter century of going blind on books and liner notes and building a blues collection so hefty that section of the cabin floor sags beneath its weight.
Which begs the question: when does enough become enough? There are doubtlessly those, confirmed blues fans no less, for whom 50 or 100 albums would prove sufficient for their appetites and provide them enough immersion in the idiom that they could go to their graves sufficiently quenched.
I don't agree with it myself. I merely understand the concept.
For me, with the blues, opening one door has always pointed towards three or four more. Robert Johnson led me (thankfully) to Son House, Charley Patton, and Sleepy John Estes. Junior Wells had me discovering both Sonny Boy Williamsons and Big Walter Horton. One day you wake up realizing you have to move the canned goods and your wife out onto the porch because your music collection has swallowed the living space. If she's a good woman, she'll grab her sleeping bag and find the door without complaint. She'll know the blues are worth it.
The digital age has made it a strange new era for a lover of the blues. We live in an time when every greedy whim can be satisfied with a few mouse clicks. Coveted recordings by bluesmen who today could hardly be called obscure could once take months or years for the weekend collector to locate now takes a few minutes on Amazon. With the ocean of information now available across the internet, the journey of discovery has become far less daunting for those only now finding their way to this music. I don't feel the relative ease diminishes the thrill of discovery one bit. The bluesfolk of yore and the breadth of their legacy are quite capable of providing a lifetime of thrills all by themselves.
In exploring these recordings, one is often startled to find that many of the albums long considered classic or essential have only recently found their way to disc...if they've made it that far at all. Such is the case with a CD I'll be spending some time with today. I already had enough discs here where I could build a boathouse out of the jewel cases--and, I believed, ample enough quantities of Big Mama Thornton on hand. As it happens, today's disc truly makes a case for "just one more."
In 2004, when Arhoolie re-issued Big Mama Thornton and the Muddy Waters Blues Band, 1966, it had been out of print for years and, for all practical purposes, forgotten. Such were the fortunes of Willie (actually 'Willa') Mae Thornton's recorded career. To the greater public, Big Mama's significant and wide contributions, indeed most of her career, would be shadowed by her earliest successes with Houston's Peacock label. From those sides came Hound Dog, the song for which she will be eternally remembered. The record sold more than two million copies--and Big Mama was paid a whole $500 for it. Just 3 years later, when Elvis released his version and launched his career, it is believed he was unaware of both the original and Big Mama herself. Elvis' effort is whitewashed by comparison, but it is the take that became the benchmark and Big Mama has remained left of the mainstream ever since. Or at least in a class by herself.
By the end of the 1950's, Thornton was without a recording contract and had followed her friend and former label-mate Gatemouth Brown to San Francisco. Financial disputes had her leaving Peacock in 1957, ending what had always been a tense relationship with the label's management. What followed were irregular, low-paying gigs and a shotgun scatter of mostly-inferior sides for obscure labels such as Irma and Bay-Tone.
In 1960, with the folk blues revival getting warmed up, German immigrant Chris Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records in El Cerrito, CA. Fifteen years earlier, Strachwitz had been a teenager and one of a flood of refugees fleeing Silesia ahead of the Russian army. Among the things he carried west with him was a burgeoning love of American popular music. Armed Forces Radio in occupied Germany gave him a proper introduction to swing. By the time he got to California in '47, he was gone.
Arhoolie got its name from historian Mack McCormick, who suggested to Strachwitz that it sounded like a Texas field holler. Arhoolie would, of course, go on to become perhaps the premiere folk & blues label...founded on the notion of shining a light on some of the best musicians almost nobody had ever heard of. They began with Mance Lipscomb and a hand-packed pressing of 250 copies. Mississippi Fred McDowell wasn't far behind.
When Arhoolie signed Big Mama Thornton in 1965, it served to reset her compass. I believe they knew Big Mama was always at her best when allowed to be Big Mama--and backed by folks whom knew how to whoop ass. Keeping a decent band together would always plague Thornton, but when she cut Live in Europe in London in October of that year, she was packing a band that included a young Buddy Guy and Chicago mainstay Louis Myers. What resulted was a solid, impressive album, marking Big Mama's roaring return to form. One can be assured his blues collection is incomplete without it.
In San Francisco the following April, Strachwitz had the good fortune to put Big Mama Thornton and the Muddy Waters Band in the studio. For one day.
At first, Arhoolie 1032 went by the unwieldy title of Big Mama Thornton, Vol. 2; The Queen At Monterey and her legendary backing band appeared with pseudonyms.
Later it would become Big Mama Thornton and the Chicago Blues Band. With this 2004 re-issue, credit's finally given where credit's due. Muddy was still fronting a monster line-up through the mid-60's and when he showed up at Coast Recorders that day, he had with him Otis Spann, James Cotton, Sammy Lawhorn, Francis Clay, and Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson.The reissue beefs the original LP's 10 tracks to 17. In its original packaging, Big Mama Thornton and the Muddy Waters Band more than lived up to its reputation as a classic. The added material helps kick this puppy a bit closer to the realm of the essential. Refreshingly light on the greatest hit set-list, this disc serves up a balanced blend of material, from simmering slow blues to patented Big Mama swagger and snarl. Even for those well familiar with Thornton's music, these tunes can still manage to take one by surprise at how completely Big Mama could bring it home and how deeply she could render those blues. For me, those moments of pause came most readily during the album's slower blues ("Sometimes I Have Heartache," "Everything Gonna Be Alright," etc.) for it is throughout those moments that we glimpse the tender heart beneath the genuinely-tough exterior...and witness, time and again, how rich an instrument Big Mama's voice truly was.
The original LP wrapped up with a pair of spirituals, "I Feel the Way I Feel" and "Guide Me Home" (tracks 9 & 10 here) that further illustrate Thornton's under-appreciated range. Like a great many bluesfolk, Willa Mae first honed her singing chops in church. When she brings that energy to bear here, with these two tunes, the result is nearly transcendent. There had apparently been hopes for Big Mama to record a gospel album while signed with Arhoolie. The heart can only ache that this did not come to fruition.
If I have any actual criticisms of this album, it is that perhaps too much bonus material has been added. It is almost a contradictory criticism in that many of this disc's highest points are in the bonus tracks as well. In keeping with the old adage that "sometimes less is more," the three alternative tracks here could have been dispensed with, to the benefit of the album's pacing. This is especially true with "Gimme a Penny's" second appearance. With only 5 tracks separating them, its inclusion stumbles an otherwise nicely-flowing pace. Further, without it, the jump from "wrapped Tight" into "Big Mama's Shuffle" would have been exhilarating rather than disjointed.
"Big Mama's Shuffle" gets, and merits, much attention when discussing this disc. It is almost certainly what it sounds like: a studio jam on which an engineer--finally--had the foresight to roll tape. It is a high octane romp and it's all about Big Mama throwing down with James Cotton. The resultant harp blow-out provides this album with some of its most electrifying moments.
Forty-four years after its release, Big Mama Thornton and the Muddy Waters Blues Band, 1966 remains a classic of electric blues that still lives up to its promise, rock-solid and straight from the belly. Often as not, when it came to "concept albums" and putting name musicians together to "see what happens," the results often fell short of the mark. Putting Big Mama Thornton in a studio with Muddy and his crew became a shining example of when it worked.
Thornton's career would continue its erratic path through the balance of her short life. She would amass a short spate of solid if not classic albums for both the Arhoolie and Vanguard labels and continued to be a force of nature on stage. When she could find a stage. When her body was discovered in a Los Angeles boarding house in July, 1984, she was penniless and long-relegated to the status of a footnote.
She was 57 years old and we will never see her like again.
Peace, Mudcatz
Big Mama Thornton & the Muddy Waters Band, 1966
Arhoolie, 2004
1. I'm Feeling Alright
2. Sometimes I have a Heartache
3. Black Rat (take 4)
4. Life Goes On
5. Everything Gonna Be Alright
6. Big Mama's Bumble Bee Blues
7. Gimme A Penny (take 6)
8. Looking The World Over
9. I Feel The Way I Feel
10. Guide Me Home
11. Black Rat (take 2)
12. Wrapped Tight
13. Gimme A Penny (take 5)
14. Big Mama's Shuffle
15. Since I fell For You
16. I'm Feeling Alright (fast version)
17. Big Mama's Blues (My Love)
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Big Mama Thornton and the Chicago Blues Band. With this 2004 re-issue
ReplyDeleteThis album simply is a must. My favorite album of Big Mama.
Cheers.
Link is down :'( Any chance to upload this?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your work.