I have often found it intriguing that a blues album can assert itself as essential listening and yet remain a comparative obscurity. When faced with a catalog as expansive as Johnny Shines' has become, it's been too easy to glance past Black & Blue's 2002 re-release, Takin' the Blues Back South as part of its Blues Reference series. Personally, the first time I spotted it, in a vendor's stall at North Atlantic Blues festival a few years back, I slid right on by, taking it for a repackaging of released and re-released Shines material. I'd obviously not spent much time reading the liner notes.To be clear, Takin' the Blues Back South is a repackaging of a Shines album, 1973's Chicago Blues Festival 1972. The original title itself was a bit confusing--and would have proved an infuriating turn were the material it did provide not such a banquet. At first glance, that title implied a live Shines outing, which this album is not. It was an assemblage of tunes Shines cut on a pair of dates in France, (Gan on November 14 and in Bordeaux 3 weeks later). The Gan cuts feature Luther Johnson on second guitar.
Though re-released only a couple years later as Nobody's Fault But Mine, the album remained an obscurity from the outset. Being a French label, what distribution arrangements Black & Blue did have in the 1970's didn't translate well for this album. Imported Shines just didn't compete with Homegrown Johnny and as the decade that gave us punk rock, emasculated singer/songwriters and disco wore on, the blues market was beginning to dry up again. Europe, at least, remained a more receptive environment. Shines was hardly unique in cutting material overseas; bluesmen had been cutting wax in Europe for at least 15 years by the time Johnny sat down for Black & Blue.
What came out of those sessions was an album of old school Delta blues that cut right to the heart of the matter. As guitarists go, Shines was a bit of a rarity himself, a player who was equally-lethal on an acoustic or electric instrument. Back that up with a voice that can rattle your windowpanes and Johnny Shines could be about as potent a package as one could ever hope. As much press as Johnny still gets for his Robert Johnson influences, his vocals always owed more stylistically to Patton and Howlin Wolf. Few bluesman could deliver a more piercing and emotive wail. His was a field holler with a backbeat.
Partial as I tend to be for Shines' electric material--I can think of few pairings more sublime than Shines backed by his old Memphis road-dawg, Big Walter Horton. To this end, sometimes I miss some true gemstones.
Eight years ago, Black & Blue rolled the dice again on this low profile album, retitling it Takin the Blues Back South. For the CD reissue, two previously-unreleased tracks, Blood Ran Like Wine and an alternative take of Mean Black Gobbler.
By whichever title you prefer, this is an entirely-unplugged album of traditionally-played Delta blues and it is exactly a disc that got us buying blues albums in the first place. Were it not for the comparatively pristine sound quality, one could easily imagine these songs being cut in Memphis' Peabody Hotel in the autumn of '29...or in a Dallas hotel room, playing into the corner. I would argue that there are moments sewn throughout this album that are as stirring--as real--as Shines ever managed to record.
Shines' Johnson influences through this album are undeniable. I Believe I'll Make a Change is, of course, a reworking of I Believe I'll Dust My Broom. Immediately into the hypnotic, wonderful Abide My Wish, we're waiting to hear Johnny mention a hellhound on his trail...which he does manage shortly before he closes the tune. When discussing Shines' music, we need to be careful to point out that, while an influence, Johnson was only one of Johnny's influences. Like any Delta player worth his corner stool, Shines took the best of what he had around him, made it his own, and kept on playing. In the jukes and roadhouses where Johnny plied his trade throughout the 1930's, Shines was famous for being able to perform entire sets, improvising all the way. To be clear: Shines was no Johnson imitator and he was far more than a "living link" to the Delta days of yore. He was its evolution.
Albums like this, still a relative-obscurity in its current form, reinforce the belief that sometimes life don't get much finer than Delta blues and acoustic Shines.
Peace, Mudcatz
A refugee from my old hard drive, I'm afraid I've no idea who the original uploader was for this one, but my sincerest thanks go to him.
The 1973 vinyl release...
Johnny Shines
Chicago Blues Festival 1972
Black & Blue, 1973
1. I Believe I'll Make a Change
2. Nobody's Fault But Mine
3. Back to the Steel Mill
4. The Devil's Daughter
5. Abide My Wish
1. Mean Black Gobbler
2. Lost Letter Blues
3. Freight Train
4. My Best Friend
5. The Blue Horizon
Link
...And the 2002 re-issue...
Johnny Shines
Takin' the Blues Back South
Black & Blue 2002
1. I Believe I'll Make a Change
2. Nobody's Fault But Mine
3. The Devil's Daughter
4. Back to the Steel Mill
5. Blood Ran Like Wine
6. Abide My Wish
7. Mean Black Gobbler
8. Lost Letter Blues
9. Freight Train
10. My Best Friend
11. the Blue Horizon
12. Mean Black Gobbler (alt.)
Link
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