Blue Monday: Janis in Amsterdam, '69

Having just put up a Bonnie Raitt show that helped re-introduce me to the trading community a few years back, it seems only fitting to look even farther back to my roots and give some love to Janis.

We all have our stories on how we became blues fans. Some of us were born into it; others, like myself, had to have a few doors kicked open for us. Like a lot of we folks of the Caucasian Persuasion, growing up in the '70's and '80's, I got turned onto the blues by the rock crowd. We were forever hearing of the blues roots of the artists we loved, from Zeppelin to the Stones to Clapton. We accepted these roots as a matter of course, saw the lyrical connections, and mostly remained removed from any of the "real blues," as much by geography as for any other reason.

If we were lucky (& if we became blues fans, we got lucky at some point...)we found an artist who opened that world up to us, who delivered to us those moments when we finally "got it." I came to the blues because I fell in love with Janis Joplin.

I first heard Janis like most of us did, because one of three or four tunes showed up on the local classic rock radio station. I was a teenager and all I could think was, "you must be shitting me. What the hell is that?" It wasn't the voice I was used to hearing from a woman.

It took a couple years. I have long maintained that life's got to knock the hell out of you, that you've got to get your heart good and shredded, before you can really "get" the blues, to feel a music that's all about the feeling. When I finally gave Cheap Thrills an honest spin, Janis ended up speaking to me as no singer ever had at that point. Thundering through Ball and Chain, I finally "got" where that voice came from. Here was the unabashed voice of rage and pain, of heartbreak and liberation.

There was no going back for me at that point. Ever.

Janis would be out front of a line of rock artists who ended up leading me straight for the old-school blues. After Janis and Jimi, Stevie Ray and, yes, the Blues Brothers, my days were numbered. BB King, Muddy Waters and Junior Wells would not be far away...

As concert recordings go, Amsterdam '69 has been in circulation--and highly-regarded--for years. It is one of the best-sounding of Janis' boots (which likely has lent itself to its reputation...a lot of Janis' concert recordings sound like ass...) It doesn't hurt one bit that Joplin and her Kozmic Blues Band serve up an electrifying set. From the horn-heavy instrumental opening until Piece of My Heart's last note fades, the band doesn't let up for a second.

Going into '69, Janis was finding her new voice, forging a new direction for herself after leaving Big Brother behind. She was looking for a tighter, bluesier sound and less Big Brother "freak-out." (Janis' quote, not mine...). The Kozmic Blues band would never become the powerhouse that Big Brother was, but they were no second-string team. They were a disparate assemblage of musicians who played as if they'd been playing together for years. Sam Andrew, who followed Janis when she leapt from Big Brother, serves up his trademark leads, though it is sax player Snooky Flowers who is the real supportive stand-out here. His high-energy duet with Janis on Can't Turn You Loose is just a joyous, sweaty romp. The song would become a standard during the Kozmic Blues Band's brief incarnation. At Woodstock four months later, it looked like this...

Janis & Snooky, Woodstock '69

Last year, long after I first got dosed with a copy of this boot, I got to call "bullshit!" on Sam Andrew over this show. Long story short, some shitstain posted a "vid" of Summertime on youtube, billing it as a duet between Janis and Jimi Hendrix (i.e. the uploader was telling folks it was Jimi playing Sam Andrew's lead...) I poked around and matched it to a June, '68 Big Brother show. Andrew had actually been contacted by someone else on youtube during that whole debate. "It was from our Amsterdam show," the legendary guitarist insisted. "I remember it like it was yesterday."

What can I say? I couldn't resist the urge to PM Sam myself to quietly remind him that there wasn't any way the suspect video came from the spring of '69. Amsterdam had a horn section.

"You know what they say," Andrew wrote me back, "'if you can remember the '60's, you weren't really there..."

I've come to believe that it is the very notoriety of this particular Joplin boot that informed Andrew's original response/thoughts. Bootleg Janis Joplin recordings generally come in two varieties: this show and all the others...


Janis Joplin
Concertgebouw
Amsterdam, Netherlands
April 1, 1969*


1. Instrumental
2. Maybe
3. Summertime
4. Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)
5. Can't Turn You Loose
6. Combination of the Two
7. Ball and Chain
8. Piece of My Heart


The Kozmic Blues Band was...

Janis Joplin - Vocals
Sam Andrew - Guitar
Cornelius "Snooky" Flowers - Baritone Sax
Brad Cambell - Bass
Richard Kermode - Organ
Terry Hensley - Trumpet
Terry Clements - Tenor Sax
Roy Markowitz - Drums


Link


*I have seen two different dates for this show, both April 1 and April 11, 1969. I have yet to determine which one is actually the correct date, though 4/1/69 seems to be the most consistent...

Peace, Mudcatz

Blue Monday: Bonnie @ the Jabberwocky, '71

A comment to my recent Albert King post had me revisiting a stack of my oldest boots, a shoebox full of wonders handed off to me by a former coworker and fellow Deadhead. I was looking to get back into trading after years (and years) away from that scene. I'd just gotten back into town with little more than the shirt on my back.

"Here," Jeff told me, thrusting a box under my arm as I headed out the door at the end of my shift, "these ought to get you started..."

It was a treasure chest of top-flight tunes that, for a blues-loving Deadhead like myself, has kept me enthralled for the best part of a decade now. They became the core of my bootleg collection, an odd assemblage that included Jerry Garcia, Santana, Little Feat, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis...and Bonnie Raitt.

Bonnie Raitt's acoustic performance at Syracuse University has long been a staple in trading circles, owing as much to the performance and sound qualities of this boot as it does to the on-going between-song banter that's just a guilty joy. By her own admission, Bonnie used to be quite a party-girl back in the day, as this show amply demonstrates; she's high as a kite and nothing short of hilarious through most of this outing.

"I am fucked up, man," she says, going into Woodstock. "I can't even fake it. At least I'm having a good time..." Bonnie was no sloppy drunk, let's make no mistake about that. Once she gets to playing, she leaves little doubt about her being on her game through this one. She was, working her way through an enjoyable, mixed-bag setlist that includes Raitt originals like Finest Loving Man and I Ain't Blue, I'm Just a Little Bit Lonesome, Buffalo Springfield and Robert Johnson covers (Love in Vain, Walkin Blues, Rollin and Tumblin...), and requisite nods to her mentor, Sippie Wallace.

Raitt was joined onstage by second guitarist Tom Jones, who plays with Bonnie for the first time on this gig. When Bonnie asks if he can play the Tommy Johnson standard Big Road Blues, and he cannot, Bonnie invites her accompanist to "stomp his feet or play with yourself," then plays on without him, delivering an energetic, top-notch version that plays homage to Tommy without coming on like a knock-off imitator. Raitt does this up with style.

This is a classic boot, a feel-good show, giving us vintage Bonnie at her crystal-voiced, flirtatious, raunchy best.

Peace, Mudcatz


Bonnie Raitt
Jabberwocky Club
Syracuse University
Syracuse NY
March 27, 1971

1. Something In the Way He Moves
2. Mighty Tight Woman
3. Bluebird
4. Rollin and Tumblin
5. Close Your Eyes
6. Richland Woman Blues
7. Let Me Be Your Blender
8. Kokomo
9. Woodstock
10. Big Road Blues
11. I Ain't Blue, I'm Just a Little Bit Lonesome
12. Finest Lovin Man
13. Candy Man
14. Walkin Blues
15. Can I Get a Witness
16. Can't Find My Way Home
17. Since I Fell For You
18. Love In Vain

Link

Road-tripping Albert: Rethinking Chicago, '78

Rolling into my dooryard this morning after a night-long run and my trip-meter read "420." I figure it had to be a sign.

With the sun coming up over my left shoulder those last few miles and Albert King blazing away on the truck's stereo, the morning twilight felt like frigging poetry. I was into my third time through the disc. It had taken me a bit by pleasant surprise on the first pass. I had to let it play through again (and then some)almost to reassure myself that it was as strong an outing as it is. When I'd first come across it a couple years back, I recall being underwhelmed by it. This morning's dawnlit miles have got me reevaluating my standing position.

Albert King was recorded prolifically, both live and in the studio, and while some releases are certainly superior to others, King didn't release many dogs. When he was on his game, which he appear to be through most of his live releases, he was a fearsome force with that guitar, cutting loose note after note that could lacerate and soothe with a single deft stroke. With such a broad discography, it is only expected that some releases will be superior to others. And such is the case here. His hippie ballroom-era releases, Live Wire/Blues Power and the Wednesday & Thursday Nights in San Francisco releases have long been regarded as undisputed classics. Further, the Blues at Sunrise and Sunset albums I featured here last Monday are essential live King releases.

Which leaves us with (among others) Charly's 1994 issue of King's Chicago, 1978. As I griped about in my recent Luther Alison post, Charly Records comes up hopelessly light on providing the facts surrounding this recording. Its title tells it all, apparently. As for when in '78 or its venue, much less the bevy of solid musicians backing Albert on this outing, not a syllable is provided. With the last track, the anthem-like I'll Play the Blues For You fading out as it does, this recording was almost certainly a bootleg before Charly ever got hold of it. As an album, does it live up to its fabled predecessors? To be fair, it doesn't.

While this critter may land south of greatness, it remains a good, at times very good, live outing. King's guitar work is superlative, rife with his trademark razor's edge style, all Memphis grease and whoop-ass. His vocals on numbers like The Very Thought of You are so deeply soulful they give me pause. Among this album's stand-out moments are the at-times blistering Born Under a Bad Sign, Please Come Back to Me, and Blues at Sunrise, which King prefaces with a warm remembrance of the Haight-Ashbury scene.

Released in the early '90's, in itself an odd time for blues releases, Chicago, 1978 never did attract much notice. And its obscurity does do it an ill service. It is a thoroughly pleasing live outing from one of the idiom's true masters.

Peace, Mudcatz



Albert King
Chicago, 1978
Charly, 1994

1. King's Bounce (instrumental)
2. Stormy Monday
3. Born Under a Bad Sign
4. The Very Thought of You
5. You're My Woman, I'm Your Mate
6. Tired As a Man Can Be
7. Blues at Sunrise
8. Breaking Up Somebody's Home
9. Please Come Back To Me
10. I'll Play the Blues For You


Link

Blue Monday: Albert @ Montreaux and Wattstax

All I've got to say is, when I get sunsets like this why the fuck would I ever want to live in a city?


As for other sunsets--and this being Blue Monday and all--I'd like to throw some attention this week onto a pair of live Albert King releases from 1973, Blues At Sunset and its sister disc, Blues at Sunrise.

Neither Albert King nor the Montreaux Jazz Festival should require any introductions. We'll be seeing plenty of Albert on this blog and a fair amount of music from Montreaux as well. Put together, Albert on that Montreaux stage, and you just know you're in for a ride. King's in top form through both of these discs...and, yes, your live collection from this blues master is hopelessly wanting without them.

To clear up the connection, Blues at Sunrise is King's July 1, 1973 set at Montreaux. Blues at Sunset, which predated ...Sunrise by a few months couples more material from that set with some stellar cuts from his set at 1972's Wattstax Festival.

Wattstax was held August 20, 1972 at the Los Angeles Coliseum to promote the African American community on the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. On stage were acts as diverse as Isaac Hayes, The Staple Singers, Little Milton...and Albert King. The documentary film from this festival would be released the following year and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Its theatrical poster looked like this...




From Albert's Wattstax set are the real gems of the album, I'll Play the Blues For You, Killing Floor, and Breaking Up Somebody's Home. King had few peers when it came to those six strings. This pairing of live albums serves ample evidence as to why.


Albert King
Blues at Sunset
Stax, 1973


1. Match Box Blues
2. Got To Be Some Changes Made
3. I'll Play the Blues For You
4. Killing Floor
5. Angel of Mercy
6. Match Box Blues
7. Watermelon Man
8. Breaking Up Somebody's Home
9. Stormy Monday


Link



Albert King
Blues At Sunrise
Stax, 1973


1. Bad Luck Blues
2. Be On Your Merry Way
3. Let's Have a Natural Ball
4. Wild Woman
5. Howlin' For My Darling
6. Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong
7. Travelin' To California
8. Laundromat Blues
9. Oh, Pretty Woman
10. Crosscut Saw
11. Born Under a Bad Sign
12. As the Years Go Passing By
13. Blues Power
14. Blues at Sunrise

Link


Peace, Mudcatz

At Home With Gary Davis

Probably no other style of American music has benefited from "home" or "field" recordings as has the blues. The work of folklorists like John Lomax and George Mitchell effectively helped to shape what we've now come to see as classic blues recording, leaving their work as revered and crucial as anything produced for commercial release. Of course, most did eventually find their way to such release--and we've become so much the richer for it. The folks who trundled their heavy recording equipment into shotgun shacks and up and down Appalachian hillsides were folklorists and researchers, academics rather than record producers. Their vision was to document roots music in the very places it had been nurtured since time began...and to get in down on record before Time buried it beneath its sands.

This was very much John Cohen's intent when he sat down in the Rev. Gary Davis' New York home in 1953. Davis had recorded a number of stunning sides for the Victor label in the mid-late '30's, then not a note for more than a decade. Exhilarating and as intricate as Davis' guitar work was, mainstream record labels were far more interested in secular music for a popular market. While never strictly a gospel man, Rev. Gary had been moving away from secular material even through the years he recorded for Victor. Davis could be uncompromising in one respect for which we have always benefited: he played what he damn well felt like playing.

What Cohen recorded there in Davis' apartment is just a wonder of gospel and blues recording. Given its vintage (& owing greatly to Smithsonian Folkways' digital clean-up), the sound quality alone could have you thinking this could have been recorded yesterday. The immediacy of Davis' delivery has not slipped one bit in the nearly-60 years since taped was rolled. He is accompanied on some of these numbers by his wife, Ann Davis, and Kinny Pebbles. Davis' ragtime guitar work is a thing of beauty here, living up every bit to his reputation as one of the most influential musicians of the last century. What further helps to make these recordings such a find is that Davis would not record the majority of these tunes again. This is their only time in the sun.

Rev. Gary's holding a meeting here...


Rev. Gary Davis
If I Had My Way: Early Recordings
Smithsonian Folkways, 1993
(Recorded New York City, 1953)

1. If I Had My Way
2. If the Lord Be For You
3. Twelves Gates of the City
4. You Got To Move
5. We Area Heavenly Father's Children
6. A Friend Like Lonely Jesus
7. Get Right Church
8. Marine Band
9. Shine on Me
10. There's Destruction on This Land
11. He Stole Away
12. The Uncloudy Day
13. Say No to the Devil
14. I Belong To the Band
15. Give Me a Heart To Love
16. He Never Has Left Me Alone
17. Got On My Traveling Shoes
18. Civil War Parade


Link


For those of you who've been digging this "Sunday Spirituals" run I've been doing, and judging from the number of downloads those posts have been generating, quite a few of you are, and who'd like to get even more adventurous, you ought to check out the post that Record Fiend put up a couple days back. Too mint for words...

Record Fiend's 10 Years of Black Country Religion Post



Peace, Mudcatz

Personally Essential: Allison's Sweet Home Chicago

Until just a few years ago, a computer wasn't anything more to me than a glorified word processor. I never even saw the internet before probably '03. Let's just say I might as well have been living in a cave. To be an obsessional blues fan prior to the Net meant you got your blues history through books and liner notes. You zoomed in on the artists and albums you kept hearing about (or came across on some compilation somewhere), broke out your mail-order catalog and hoped your choices would live up to their hype. Sometimes you got lucky; sometimes you got boned.

Luther Allison has always delivered the goods for me, even through those years when I knew next to nothing of the man. I was blessed, back in the mid-1980's, to have seen Luther twice at club venues in Germany. It was an electrifying experience both times, explosive, riveting, and largely formative for me, a young white kid from Maine just getting into the blues. Imagine my thrill, years later, when a bitter, grizzled old convict handed me a copy of Blue Streak. At that time, I hadn't even realized Luther had recorded, much less that he'd actually been around for a whole lot of years.

I've never said I wasn't a dumb-ass.

All my Luther Allison purchases back then were blind-shots because there was so little information readily available about the man. One of the first to find its way to me was a "Charly Blues Masterworks" edition of Sweet Home Chicago. Through the years that followed, it had remained a bit of a mystery to me. The liner notes, of which I've always been a compulsive reader, were a mixed blessing. Its author, John Collis, did a fine job of summarizing the differences between the South and West Side schools of Chicago blues and for providing the standard synopsis of Luther's biography.

As for telling me what I was listening to, where it was recorded, and who was playing, Charly failed miserably. Two and a half pages of liner notes and all that was provided, almost as an afterthought, was:

"Luther Allison: v/g
Rest Unknown
Recorded Chicago, ca. 1976"

I suppose we should be relieved that Charly at least correctly identified Luther as the vocalist and guitarist. The rest is shit. Recorded in Chicago, Gracie? During his rave-up Sweet Home Chicago Allison actually identifies Peoria as his location. As for the players? Luther calls out two by name during this set, a "Sidney" (who I'd always assumed was the sax player) and "Bernard," which had me immediately wondering if Luther had had his son on stage--and playing--for this one. But that just didn't make sense. 1976!?! Bernard would have been 11 years old at most. What I wasn't so easy to dismiss is the paternal pride in Luther's voice as they wrap up Willie Cobb's You Don't Love Me, "...Let's hear it for Bernard, ladies and gentlemen. Shit, yes!"

There's nothing like a sackful of inconsistencies to keep a man wondering for years.

So let's set the record straight.

Sweet Home Chicago was recorded as part of a two-night run, April 18-19, 1979 at a club called The Other Side in Peoria Heights, IL. Admittedly, Peoria isn't far from Chicago...but if you're going to be presenting documentary citations, get your fact right! Two albums were released from these shows, Rumble Records' Gonna Be a Live One in Here Tonight! and Power Wire Blues (part 2), both issued that same year. Neither album went anywhere.

Gonna Be a Live One... would see re-release four years later on the Red Lightnin' label as South Side Safari. Two years after that, in 1985, Charly re-packaged and released Power Wire Blues as Sweet Home Chicago.

"Sidney" turned out to be keyboardist Sid Windfield. The feller blowing that mean alto sax was Mike Allen. Kenny Bordeau played bass on these gigs, with Kenny Arnold on the drums.

Turns out that not only did 13 year-old Bernard Allison play on two of the tunes from this disc, it was actually his first time onstage. Bernard remembers it this way: “When we moved to Peoria, Dad came home preparing to do his live album in Peoria, I hooked up the amplifier and guitar in the basement and started playing his first record, Love Me Mama, note for note. He freaked out and said tonight you’re gonna record with me. That was my first recording. I played “You Don’t Love Me No More” and “Sweet Home Chicago.”

We've logged some long miles together, this album and I. It's traveled with me from the days when the living was bad and the places truly dark. Curious though its inclusion may seem, Sweet Home Chicago became a sentimental favorite on impact and has never been far from my side. I consider it a "curious inclusion" because we'll not find it on a single Top 20 list. Ever. It is a bastard son recording for bastard sons. In the context of Luther's own canon, it will always (& admittedly justifiably) be overshadowed by Allison's Alligator releases, as well as his pre-Motown work. Still, after all these "qualifications" are mentioned, I just can't consider my blues collection complete without it.

With just six songs, most of them covers of blues standards like Dust My Broom and Don Nix's Goin' Down, and weighing in at just over 43 minutes, this disc will always seem like an outrider to me. It just shouldn't be as solid a Luther Allison outing as it is, but a smoker it remains. Luther's vocals throughout are as good as they ever got, brimming with soul and humor. As for those six strings? Well, you didn't put a guitar in Luther Allison's hands without expecting some great stuff to come flying back at you. He doesn't even begin to disappoint here. This is a "Quick-Fix" dose of Luther. In case of emergency, break glass.


Luther Allison
Sweet Home Chicago
(Blues Masterworks, Vol. 37)
Charly, 1996

1. Dust My Broom
2. I Got Worries
3. You Don't Love Me
4. Goin' Down
5. I'm Gonna Leave You Alone
6. Sweet Home Chicago


Lnk



...And just to finally, rightly, "reassemble" these recordings, 1983's South Side Safari presents 7 more cuts that are just a joy to the last. Among their highlights are Movin On Up, which was one of Luther's very first recordings when he cut it as "Gotta Move On Up" for Delmark's pivotal 1968 "Sweet Home Chicago" compilation (which also included material by Magic Sam, Louis Myers, and Big Mojo Elem.) Cat Blues is the real fun for this album, though, giving Luther the opportunity to poke fun at Peoria's Caterpillar factory, where Allison himself had worked at one time, as were a great many in his audience those nights. During this song we also witness one of the earlier occasions when Luther has a conversation with his guitar, a "gimmick" that would become a standard through the balance of his career.


Luther Allison
South Side Safari
Red Lightnin, 1983



1. Strokes
2. You're Gonna Need Me
3. You Upset Me Babe
4. Movin On Up
5. The Thrill Is Gone
6. Cat Blues
7. Messin With The Kid


Link


Peace, Mudcatz

TDIH: Luther @ North Sea Jazz '96

I'm putting this one up in salute to the now-departed Floppy Boot Stomp. As many of you know, this great blog got shut down yesterday, the latest of a string of music blogs that have fallen under the hammer. While I am confident that Silent Way, Mitch, Jobe and the others will be back, it's always disheartening to watch another site go down.

Love us or hate us, and our reasons for blogging and doing what we do are as varied as the blogs themselves, these blogs are a lot of work. They are a labor of love...and, yes, the reality is that we and all that work can be gone in an instant. It really is only a matter of time before the axe falls here. Sadly, that's just how it is.

So thanks, Floppy Boot, for all the work you've done there and all the joy you've helped spread around.

I'm pretty sure I got this *MINT* Luther Allison set over at Floppy Boot a while back--and I hope I did leave a thanks behind. It's been worth it a few times over.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, "TDIH" stands for "This Date in History"... and as good fortune has it, today's TDIH provides some nice symmetry to the BB King set I just put up a few hours back, both played on a July 13th at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland, 11 years apart.

Luther Allison, always one of my favorite musicians, was riding the crest of his comeback run in the summer of '96, when he appeared at North Sea Jazz. And he delivers the goods in fine style. For a performer renowned for his 3-hour shows, this seems a short set, clocking in at just over 51 minutes. But don't you worry none. Luther made every second count in this one...

Luther Allison
North Sea Jazz Festival
Den Haag, Netherlands
July 13, 1996

(Sbd @ 320/kps)


1. Move From the 'Hood
2. You Don't Know
3. Cherry Red Wine
4. Walking Papers
5. Big City
6. Serious
7. You Are So Beautiful
8. Soul Fixin' Man

Link


Thanks, Floppy Boot Stomp!!

Peace, Mudcatz

Live Aid Turns 25...BB @ North Sea Jazz

Today marks the 25th anniversary of 1985's Live Aid concerts, probably the largest of the international charity concert events we've ever seen. If the numbers are even close to accurate, 1.4 billion people, about a quarter of the planet's population at the time, tuned in to at least some of this historic event. Staged in London and Philadelphia, philanthropic rockers Bob Geldof and Midge Ure got this one together and off the ground in just over three weeks, assembling no less than 40 name bands and, for the purpose of this event, largely reassembling bands that had since passed from the stage (the surviving members of Zeppelin, the Who, and Sabbath's original line-up...) The event and its subsequent marketing ultimately raised $200 million dollars in relief for the famine victims of Ethiopia.

At least one performer, Phil Collins, played both the London and Philadelphia venues, grabbing a quick leap on the Concorde between. Others, like the legendary BB King, "phoned" their sets in from elsewhere. BB King was in the Netherlands, playing the North Sea Jazz Festival, and at least 4 songs from his performance were simulcast during the Live Aid benefit, just across the Channel.

I was 20 years old in the summer of '85, an American soldier stationed in Giessen, Germany. For me, Live Aid started at a small pub called the Hard Rock, shooting pool and watching the broadcast from a TV in the corner. Our entourage, a mix of soldiers and German nationals, migrated from the pub to a local hippie's apartment and finally to an open field on the outskirts of town. We'd had no permission to camp there, we simply showed up, gathered dead-fall, and built a fire. We spent the wee hours of that late night and morning with the music playing on, passing bottles of wine and pipes of hash, lost in our laughter and our sweet and reckless dreams of youth.

For Woody and Beppo, Lisle, Tucker, and especially Anje, thanks for the memories. I hope the miles between then and now have been glorious.

BB King
North Sea Jazz Festival
Den Haag, Netherlands
July 13, 1985

Sbd (VBR)


1. How Blue Can You Get
2. Caledonia
3. All Alone
4. I've Got a Mind To Give Up Living
5. When It All Comes Down*
6. Why I Sing the Blues*
7. Don't Answer the Door*
8. Rock Me Baby*
9. Sweet Black Angel
10. Instrumental
11. Outro


Link

*Simulcast as part of Live Aid.

Peace, Mudcatz

Blue Monday: Bukka in Bremen, '75

Every now and then we come across an "unofficial release" that amply rewards we lovers of bootlegs. This one is a delicious rarity, obscure enough where I can't even determine if any of the material had ever actually been officially released, even in Germany, from whence this recording originates. This is one of those occasions when "rare" and "obscure" add up to paydirt.


I have always preferred Bukka White's pre-war recordings to those of his post-rediscovery. They just get under my skin and linger more than most of the stuff White did through the Sixties, strong as a great deal of that material was. This concert's had me rethinking that particular bias. It is precisely that much of a revelation.

From what I gather, this concert was sponsored by the German bank, Sparkasse, in March, 1975, hence "The Sparkasse Concert" is the most frequently cited subtitle...when one can find any mention of this set at all. Stefan Wirz's discographies, which are usually spot-on, even gets a little hazy on this one. No label is cited as issuing this LP (though Sparkasse apparently had a role)--and, further, Wirz gets the release date wrong, stating it as "1/75," which requires more than a leap of faith as the concert didn't even occur until March. Shall we say this was released into circulation in January, '76? To make things even more confusing is that this was apparently taped for Radio Bremen.

What we do know, pretty much indisputably, is that Bukka's in top form for this show. This is an amazing live document of a bluesman at the end of his career and still an undiminished force to be reckoned with.

Peace, Mudcatz


Bukka White
Country Blues
"The Sparkasse Concert"
Bremen, Germany
March 11, 1975


(Vinyl rip @320/kps)


1. Black Rat
2. Way Out in the West
3. Mama Don't Allow
4. Stuttgart, Arkansas
5. Don't Fuzz Blues
6. Big Boat Up the River
7. New Orleans Streamline
8. Everyday I Have the Blues
9. Aberdeen Blues
10. Midnight Blues
11. Poor Boy


Link

Blue Monday: Muddy @ The Cellar Door, '75

Hey folks. We got some good stuff going up tonight on this week's Blue Monday installments, a pair late-career gems from a couple of the giants of the idiom.


First up, we're finding Muddy playing a small venue to a raucous, appreciative crowd in the nation's capitol (dig the interaction between Muddy and the audience member requesting Jimmy Reed's What Is That She Got? for a great glimpse how intimate this room must have been). I'm pretty sure I've got the early show from this night as well, though it may take some digging. This is how they wrapped the evening. Oh, what a night...

Muddy Waters
The Cellar Door
Washington, DC
July 23, 1975
(Late Show)

(@ 320/kps)


01 - Get My Baby Back*
02 - Stuck On You*
03 - Let Me In*
04 - Band Intros
05 - Baby Please Don't Go
06 - I Want You To Love Me
07 - What Is That She Got?
08 - Goodbye Baby
09 - Satisfied
10 - Kansas City**
11 - Caledonia
12 - Outro

* Vocals by Luther Jonson
**Duet with Pinetop Perkins


Muddy Waters - Vocals, Guitar
Luther "Guitar Jr." Johnson - Guitar
Bob Margolin - Guitar
Jerry Portnoy - Harp
Pinetop Perkins - Piano
Willy 'Big Eyes' Smith - Drums
Calvin Jones - Bass

Link


Peace, Mudcatz

Mississippi Fred Preaches To the Choir

I've often found it intriguing, when glancing over Mississippi Fred McDowell's healthy catalog, that Amazing Grace consistently places on list after list of "Recommended Albums." It is, after all, neither a blues album nor an album where the legendary bluesman is even front and center for most of this outing.

All curiosity over its inclusion on these lists is immediately swept away after just one spin of this disc. Fred McDowell: Amazing Grace is nothing short of a classic, an album that gets into your blood and lends every bit of the immediacy now as it did when it was cut, in February, 1966.

Star billing aside, this disc is actually The Hunter's Chapel Singers, from Como, Mississippi. McDowell plays guitar and lends harmonies through most of the tracks, though in the context of this album, he is an ensemble player. He's featured in a couple solo performances (e.g Back Back Train, The Lord Will Make a Way), though this is on par with his fellow artists' contributions. And those contributions are just a wonder.

When trying to understand the history of the blues, we often hear of its pedigree, which includes African-American spirituals and work songs. To my ear, this family tree is strikingly evident throughout these cuts. Shave the tempo down a bit on songs like When I Lay My Burden Down and we're hearing the cadences of the levee camps and prison farms. Devoid of all the polish and flash we often find with gospel outings, these spirituals feel like a Southern country church, all weathered pine boards, old-time religion and raising a voice. Stripped-down or unembellished, these performances are a feast of harmonies, from the opening tracks on.

The Hunter's Chapel Singers included Annie Mae McDowell, Fred's wife, with whom he'd cut another largely-spiritual album just two years previously. She brought Fannie Davis, Grace Bowden and James Collins with her. Just the five of them with Fred's guitar are a full-on revival meeting, with voices straight from the soul. Fred's guitar work, one of the reasons for his renown, is largely understated throughout this album--he and his troupe are out frying bigger fish for this outing--though he retains his trademark insistent elegance. His guitar intro The Lord Will Make a Way is as stirring a gospel as any vocal performance on this CD.

We have grown so used to African American gospel that's fire-and-glory and dancing in the aisles. Sometimes, when we get to spinning a disc like Fred McDowell: Amazing Grace, we get reminded that some of the best gospel out there wasn't meant to raise the rafters. Just shake some foundations.

Peace, Mudcatz



Fred McDowell and the Hunter's Chapel Singers
Amazing Grace
Testament, 1995

1. Jesus On The Mainline
2. When I Lay My Burden Down
3. I'm So Glad I Got Good Religion
4. Going Over The Hill
5. I Know I've Been Converted
6. Just a Little More Faith
7. Back Back Train
8. You Got To Move
9. Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed
10. Amazing Grace
11. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning
12. Tell The Angels
13. When You Come Out Of The Wilderness
14. The Lord Will Make A Way
15.It's A Blessing
16. This Little Light Of Mine


Link

Blue Monday: Lockwood @ Chicago Blues Festival, '95

A couple years back, when I first came across this Robert Junior Lockwood set, I thought it was manna from Heaven, a late-career gem that has never gotten notice, much less the love it deserves. Lockwood had just turned 80 when he took the stage at Grant Park for this set and would still have another decade's worth of playing ahead of him. On stage at that year's Chicago Blues Festival, Lockwood more than proved he was still one of the best there ever was.


Robert Lockwood Jr.
1995 Chicago Blues Festival
Grant Park
Chicago IL
June 2, 1995

(@ 320/kps)

1. King Biscuit Time
2. I'm Just Your Fool
3. Lockwood's Boogie
4. Tell Me What's In Store
5. Hangin' On
6. Ramblin' On My Mind
7. Stop Breakin' Down
8. This Is The Blues
9. Everyday I Have The Blues
10. Mojo Hand

Link


Don't ask, just do.

Enjoy.

Peace, Mudcatz

Blue Monday: Mississippi Fred McDowell, Live & Essential, '69

Monday again. How time flies.

Heat wave's broiling these north woods. Six in the evening and it's still 94 degrees. The breeze coming in off the lake is just enough to make the shade here on the deck a true enough shelter. With feet up and sufficient fluids on ice, life's been good for hours now, thanks to the bluesmen who are insisting they get their first Blue Monday turns here..


A few years back I got into a brief argument with a feller on Deadhook, who insisted it was with RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Jessie Mae Hemphill that folks first became aware of the blues from the Mississippi Hill country. Because of the Hill country's comparative isolation from the Delta (which he felt had become too homogenized), the blues stylings there were more true to their roots, etc. Personally I think that's monkey junk (with thanks to Son House for that turn of a phrase). It presupposes that these folks were living in a bubble, untouched by outside influences. That was never the case.

Further and most importantly, blues fans had been well aware of the Hill Country for decades before the 1990's saw a resurgent interest in that school of the blues. We'd long since been hipped to the Hill Country by probably its most important practitioner: Mississippi Fred McDowell.

McDowell would be among the country blues musicians who would be discovered (as opposed to re-discovered) by the folk/blues revival of the late '50's-thru mid-'60's. From 1960 until his death in 1972, McDowell waxed an impressive library of blues and spirituals that assured him not only his lasting fame and esteem but supplied blues recording itself with an essential canon.

There are a scatter of live McDowell releases (official and not). Standing at the Burying Ground is his greatest live recording. Cut at London's Mayfair Hotel in 1969, McDowell served up a strong setlist of mostly-familiar tunes, delivering every note of them with power and immediacy. Standout tracks from this outing include 61 Highway, Shake 'Em on Down, Evil Hearted Woman and, most especially, what amounts to a pair of When I Lay My Burden Down entries. The first of these feature Jo Ann Kelly sitting in with Fred. Their duet is haunting, hypnotic, and an absolute jewel.

As concert--and blues--recordings go, this one must not be ignored.

Peace, Mudcatz


Mississippi Fred McDowell
Standing At The Burying Ground
Sequel Records, 1996

Recorded live at the Mayfair Hotel, London, 1969

(VBR)

1. 61 Highway
2. Red Cross Store
3. When I Lay My Burden Down (w/ J Kelly
4. Evil-Hearted Woman
5. I Asked For Whiskey, he Brought Me Gasoline
6. Standing at the Burying Ground
7. Glory Hallelujah
8. Write Me a few Lines
9. My Baby Done Me Wrong
10. Shake Em On Down
11. Louise
12. My Babe
13. Waves on the Water

Link

Sister Rosetta: Chicago, '70

It's the middle of the night and the lake is black as a coal bin, its waters striped by a quarter moon with shards of shattered silver two miles long. Moments ago, this deck sounded like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and life seemed about as perfect as it could be.

As it seems I've fallen into a "Sunday Spirituals" theme these last few weeks, I figured I couldn't break a good thematic run without giving some love to Sister Rosetta.


I have almost no information about this live set, beyond that it stems from an FM radio broadcast and was recorded in Chicago on November 8, 1970. Bare facts aside, the sound quality for this crackling performance is fantastic! A stroke would end Rosetta's career before the year was out. This set assures us that she wrapped things up on a strong point, with a lot of class and making a joyful noise.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Chicago IL
November 8, 1970

FM (@320)

01. That's All
02. Rain Song
03. Up Above My Head
04. Games People Play
05. Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen
06. Oh Happy Day

Link

Peace, Mudcatz

Essentials: Newport '60 Turns 50

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Muddy Waters' seminal set at the 1960 Newport Jazz festival. The festival itself has been remembered with some infamy for the riots that swept through town the night before Muddy's set. It is remembered in better light for wrapping up on a late Sunday afternoon when it was all just so right.

Released three years later, Muddy Waters at Newport, 1960 remains as one of Muddy's--and the blues'--utterly essential albums.

And of course, it almost didn't happen. The blues program scheduled for Sunday afternoon was spared summary execution by the Newport Town Council. Allowing this program to commence was the council's sole concession, having voted 4-3 to cancel the rest of the jazz festival. Given the ugliness of the preceding 24 hours, this concession seems almost magnanimous in retrospect. It was almost certainly a move on the town council's part to redeem its suddenly and unexpectedly-tarnished image. Sunday's program was to be filmed by the United States Information Agency "for promoting American culture overseas..." While canceling this particular commitment would have cured some minor headaches, allowing the event to go forward with cameras rolling ensured that the last (and likely most enduring) images coming out of Newport would not be of the previous night's chaos.

It has been frequently cited that the Newport 1960 riot broke out when 3-400 jazz fans tried to storm the gates through "only a handful of cops" and into Freebody Park. Sometimes these accounts suggest that Ray Charles was already on stage when this occurred, but that's just junk.

Newport's streets were already swirling into the dumper long before the gate-crashing. By the Friday before, there were thousands more young people than either Freebody Park, or Newport itself, could accommodate. It should be remembered that this was 4th of July weekend and thousands of folks were looking to spend it on the beach. There is no way to estimate how many of the rioters were actually there to get into the festival and how many were swept up into the mayhem. Hundreds were unable to find lodging the night before in a town already swollen with ticket-holding festival-goers. Hundreds spent Friday night on the beach and in the rain.

Saturday the weather was gorgeous and Newport was jammed. "Midday we inched along in our patrol car and eventually had to abandon it," Cab Costello, a retired Newport patrolman recalled. "The beer stores in town were selling to buyers all day long, which obviously was a mistake."

By late in the afternoon, the expanding crowd had descended on Freebody Park. The State Police were called in to augment Newport's only 100 officers. Scattered fistfights were already breaking out in the mob. At 7:30, an hour before the Festival's scheduled start time, the crowd rushed the southeast gate. "Kids began tearing down the big wooden gate to get into the concert," Jack Taylor, another Newport PD vet remembered. He drove a refrigerator truck into the breach to "block the gap and keep them out."

The Festival's promoter, George Wein, was asked not to cancel the evening's performances no matter how bad things got outside the park. The Powers-That-Were were justifiably concerned that 16,000 pissed off jazz fans would be dumped into the riot. Ray Charles and Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross went on as scheduled as the riot raged on in the streets. Two hundred cops locked arms and tried to push the crowd back. They were met with a hail of bottles and debris. Ill-prepared for such a melee, the officers wore no helmets.

When the fire hoses didn't break up the mob, the cops got busy with the tear gas and riot batons. Almost 4 hours after the riot began, the officers finally managed to split them "into two running groups."

At midnight, the governor deployed three companies of the Rhode Island National Guard. With 170 of them arrested, the rioters were pushed back and contained on the beach. Newport began busing them out of town first thing in the morning, at roughly the time Muddy Waters and his band were arriving, having driven in a station wagon all the way from Chicago. Patrolled by soldiers and with their streets a shambles of broken bottles and windows, the Town Council had a tough choice to make. They could have easily cut their losses and canceled it all. They instead permitted the blues program to go on as planned--and be filmed--hoping that they'd give the world a high point with which to remember that chaotic weekend.


That afternoon saw Otis Spann, backed by the rest of the Muddy Waters Band, serve up a rock-solid set (eventually released in Europe) that helped establish for him a secondary career as a bandleader. What little I've seen of John Lee Hooker's set (also backed by Muddy's band) has been on youtube, such as this little nugget here...

John Lee Hooker @ Newport, '60

Muddy's set will always be the jewel in that afternoon's crown. He knew he had a lot riding on this one. Playing big meant risking losing big and when he took that stage, he was stepping into places he'd never been. It wasn't just about playing to white audiences--Muddy had already played for white folks on both sides of the Atlantic, though nothing resembling at this scale. And it wasn't just about marketing, turning white jazz and folk fans onto Muddy. That afternoon was about arriving. With that driving, grinding, pile-driver of a South Side sound on Newport's prestigious stage, it was as much about legitimacy as anything else. Electric Chicago blues was demanding it be recognized as American, rather than regional, music. On that stage, they looked 16,000 white folks in the face and demanded to be regarded as the equals and peers of all the musicians who had come before.

I believe Muddy was mindful of this during his set--for the most tenuous of reasons. As he thunders into Hoochie Coochie Man's close, he changes the lyrics, switching out "the whole round world" for "the whole United States knows I'm here..." It was a rare occurrence. I've got a stack of Muddy's live performances here (and, yup, most will show up on this blog...) and he rarely deviated from the original lyrics in that part. He was making it personal.

Hello, America, we're here! Shove it up your ass if you don't like it!

Do I think Muddy was feeling the uncertainty of it all when he took that stage? Yes, and again for the same tenuous reasoning. While admittedly still a new song, (they'd recorded it only weeks before), Muddy sounds tentative starting things off with I Got My Brand on You. It is an undeniably fine version, but Muddy sounds detectably cautious. When compared to the Chess single (conveniently included for our comparison on the 2001 MCA re-release), Newport's opening track sounds less-assured. Four songs later, he blows the lyrics for Tiger In Your Tank.

This is of course purely conjecture on my part. Muddy was a consistently-unflappable performer and this Tiger remains a strong version--Muddy never missed a beat and the fans never knew the difference. A case could just as easily be made that, being new to their repertoire, Muddy could hardly be faulted. I'd as quickly argue that that is precisely where nerves will present themselves.

Using that same yardstick, what is even more apparent throughout this performance is that Muddy knew he owned the joint.

In the end, Muddy isn't remembered for Newport because of history. What he and his band served up that Sunday afternoon was one of the blues' perfect sets. There are many more legendary than this one, but these original 9 songs added up to an album that remains as essential now, 47 years later, as it did when it was released.

Live at Newport, 1960 is a disc that starts off soft and wraps up with guns blazing, delivering definitive versions of Baby, Please Don't Go, Soon Forgotten, and Feel So Good along the way. But it's Muddy's Mojo that gets remembered the most from Newport '60, more than any other song, more than the riot itself. It ended up being a two-part Mojo because the fans, dancing in the aisles, were digging it so much they had to keep it going.


And what a band. Otis Spann on piano. The incomparable James Cotton on harp. Pat Hare on lead guitar. Andrew Stevenson on bass and the swinging Chicago vet Francis Clay on the kit. Pat Hare would soon be off to prison, and Stevenson to obscurity, but they left behind them an undeniable moment in the sun.

Muddy's set was followed (or climaxed) by an all-star jam that has never been released on any versions of this album.

As far as anyone knew--in fact, as most believed--it was over. The Newport Jazz festival would be no more. So moved was he by its closing moments, legendary poet Langston Hughes, himself a member of the Planning Board, scratched Good-Bye Newport Blues on the back on a Western Union blank. He handed the poem to Spann, who returned to the stage and served up an impromptu rendering that cuts straight to the heart of the blues.

"What's going to happen to my music?" Spann croons. "What's going to happen to my song?"

The Newport Jazz Festival would return after a two-year hiatus and Muddy would continue on with his storied career for better than two more decades. Running alongside him as it has for a half century now, his set at Newport '60 still barks loudly as one of the Chicago blues' many definitive moments.

Peace, Mudcatz.


Muddy Waters
Live at Newport 1960
MCA 2001

1. I Got My Brand On You
2. Hoochie Coochie Man
3. Baby Please Don't Go
4. Soon Forgotten
5. Tiger In Your Tank
6. I Feel So Good
7. Got My Mojo Working, p.1
8. Got My Mojo Working, p.2
9. Good-bye Newport Blues
10. I Got My Brand On You*
11. Soon Forgotten*
12. Tiger In Your Tank*
13. Meanest Woman*

*CD Bonus tracks

Link

TGIF! Pinetop @ Bowdoin, '94

I ain't even kidding. Thank God it's Friday.

And I am fucking back!

Hard drive has now returned home after being sent out for repairs, which included being tied down to the bedposts and puking pea soup at Maximilian Schell. Demons exorcised...and 60 gigs of music files, some irreplaceable, up in smoke.

I could bitch (more than I have already) or I could spin some frigging blues and make it all better. Besides, there are some real survivors out there...

About 15 years back, the ultra-obscure Deluge Records out of Waterville, Maine (you want to talk "obscure?" I'm from that area and I've never heard of them...)released Pinetop Perkins' Live Top, capturing a Perkins set at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Not surprisingly, their live release has remained off the radar since its release.

And what a shame. Live Top is one of those releases that come out of nowhere, that you give a spin to almost as an after-thought, puts the love down on you and leaves you wondering "where did that come from?"

At 97, Pinetop's the last man standing from the old Delta players. He's still playing and remains a musician of singular class and charm. In October of '94, when he was still a young upstart of 81, he was touring with the Blue Flames, who back him on this set. The Blue Flames were Doug Wainoris on guitar, David "D.W." Gill on harp, Jack Tukey on bass, Bob "Bongo" Noyes on drums, and Jake Isaacson on piano).

Despite its obscurity, Live Top strikes me as some of the best material I've come across with Perkins as a bandleader. His playing through a nicely-balanced setlist is frisky and strong and his presence is undeniably, classically Pinetop.


Pinetop Perkins
Live Top
Deluge Records
Del-D-3010, 1994


1. Chucken Shack
2. After Hours
3. High Heeled Sneakers
4. Hoochie Coochie Man
5. Murmur Low
6. Five Years
7. I Had My Fun
8. Down in Mississippi
9. Low Down Dirty Shame
10. Got My Mojo Working
11. Caledonia
12. I Almost Lost My Mind


Link


Peace, Mudcatz