Blue Monday: Albert & the Hound @ Joe's Place, '72 & '73

I think we'll spend just a bit more time in Boston--or at least across the Charles River, in Cambridge. The sheer concentration of universities in that area, or more specifically their thirsty, music-loving student bodies, served to make Boston a curious hotbed for blues music, but a hotbed it became indeed. Forty and fifty years later, we're still finding ourselves loving on music that came out of that scene. Boston had legendary nightspots like the Unicorn Coffee House, Paul's Mall, and the Tea Party. Cambridge had Club 47 and the humbly-named Joe's Place.

It seems if you were a bluesman in the early '70's and managed to get anywhere near New England, you played Joe's Place. The sheer volume of unofficial recordings--and quality blues-- to come out of that club has guaranteed that we're still talking about the joint four decades on.

When Albert Collins showed up in January, '73 he was into the long, lean years between moving on from Imperial and finding his way to Alligator. In Cambridge, he's in front of a potent, stripped-down quartet that gives us, at times, a funkier feel than we would see in later Ice Breakers years (see the Thaw Out opening and "by request" Frosty for examples...) Through an hour-long set, the Iceman gives us vintage, ripping readings of Gonna Walk With You Baby, Conversation with Collins, and Back Stroke. This is lean and mean Albert, grinning all the way...


Albert Collins
Joe's Place
Cambridge MA
January 17, 1973

FM

1. Thaw Out
2. Can't You See What You're Doin' To Me
3. Gonna Walk With You Baby
4. Get Down
5. Frosty
6. Conversation With Collins
7. Stormy Monday
8. Back Stroke
9. Instrumental

Albert Collins: Guitar, Vocals
B.C. Hill: Bass
Dave Maxwell: Piano
Mark David: Drums


Link


Less than two months before, Hound Dog Taylor, Brewer Phillips, and Ted Harvey played a spate of shows through late November...and provided we blueshounds with hours of enjoyment and fits of confusion. Bootlegs of Hound Dog's November, 1972 run at Joe's Place first began being traded, then started popping up, years later on labels like Wolf and New Rose Blues. New Rose issued the most famous of these, Live at Joe's Place, in 1992, the same year that Wolf gave us Have Some Fun. They would follow this latter album up two years later with Freddie's Blues. This trio of albums provide the backbone of Taylor's non-Alligator discography.

And they were all cut at Joe's Place, in November of '72.

In 2006, British re-issue label Charly released Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers: Live in Boston. Though (as usual) light on citing their source material, Charly essentially released a "best of" compilation from these three Joe's Place albums. The best of these, New Rose's Live at Joe's Place, contributes 6 of of the 15 cuts and some of its strongest moments, though the Roll Your Moneymaker and Take Five offerings from Freddy's Blues are right tasty as well. Taylor, Phillips, and Harvey were, all three, liquored up and having a ball throughout these sets, giving it to Joe's like they were used to giving it to Florence's every Sunday: loose and raw, primal and raucous, blues that makes a man feel good 'bout being alive.

Peace, Mudcatz




Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers
Live in Boston
Charly, 2006

1. Wild About You Baby
2. The Sky is Crying
3. Dust My Broom
4. Give Me back My Wig
5. Mama, Talk To Your Daughter
6. Gonna Send You Back To Georgia
7. Rock Me Baby
8. Jumping With Symphony Sid
9. Just Can't Take It
10. It Hurts Me Too
11. Roll Your Moneymaker
12. Freddie's Blues
13. Let's Get Funky
14. Take Five
15. Goodnight Boogie

Link