Big John Wrencher - Maxwell Street Alley Blues (1969)

2017-10-07T13:04:09Z

Big John Wrencher - Maxwell Street Alley Blues (1969)


1 	Maxwell Street Alley Blues 	4:12
2 	Special Rider Blues 	2:43
3 	Back Porch Boogie 	3:21
4 	No Good Weasel 	3:52
5 	Goin' Upstairs 	4:57
6 	Dust My Bed 	3:36
7 	Root Man Blues 	5:05
8 	Moonshine Blues 	8:05
9 	Ha-Ha Baby 	5:20
10 	Conductor Blues 	5:21
11 	Rockin' Chair Blues 	4:29
12 	12th Street Boogie 	3:12
13 	Rough Tough Boogie 	2:19

Drums – Playboy Vinson
Electric Guitar – Little Buddy Thomas
Harmonica – Big John Wrencher
Producer – George Paulus
Vocals – Big John Wrencher

While most blues albums bear romantic-sounding titles like the one used here, this is the real deal. Wrencher's one-armed amplified harp playing is perfectly supported by the lone guitar of Little Buddy Scott and the bar-bones basic drumming of Playboy Vinson. Listing titles is superfluous, since the feel and the ambience is the important thing. But blues albums seldom capture that elusive quality the way it is here, and that's the secret of its charm. Superlative in every regard, this is a great album by a very under-recorded artist. ---Cub Koda, AllMusic Review

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Big John Wrencher – Big John’s Boogie Plus (1974)

2010-12-30T11:22:36Z

Big John Wrencher – Big John’s Boogie Plus (1974)


1.	Honeydripper                   play
2.	Third Degree
3.	Now, Darling
4.	Where Did You Stay Last Night?
5.	Trouble Makin' Woman
6.	Lonesome in My Cabin
7.	How Many More Years?
8.	Come on Over                   play
9.	Telephone Blues
10.	Runnin' Wild
11.	Big John's Boogie
12.	I'm a Root Man


Bass Guitar – Bob Brunning
Drums – Pete York
Guitar – Eddie Taylor
Harmonica, Vocals – Big John Wrencher
Piano – Bob Hall

This set by the obscure yet legendary one-armed harmonica player and singer Big John Wrencher is one of the great overlooked blues classics of the 1970s. Recorded in England in 1975 (with two bonus tracks from 1974) with Eddie "Playboy" Taylor's band, the Blueshounds, it is the only recording in Wrencher's small catalog that begins to capture the intensity, soulfulness, and elegance of his live performances. Wrencher was a composer as well as an interpreter and arranger of great blues and R&B classics. The set begins with an amazing read of "Honeydripper" by Joe Liggins. Began as a simple blues shuffle, Wrencher's harmonica solo before the tune's main groove kicks in turns it into something else entirely -- a spine-loosening groover of the highest order. When he begins to sing in his clear, smooth baritone, the seams begin to split and the track bleeds blue all over the stereo. His arrangement of the traditional blues tune "Third Degree" is a nearly Famous Flames-styled funk tune with its choogling riff and pumped-up bass in the front of the mix. Wrencher's voice makes it really growl and shake, however. He doesn't ask questions when he sings; he shouts what he knows. Wrencher's own "Lonesome in My Cabin" is a spooky, minor-key blues that has the author's moaning, groaning vocal at its heart, and a repetitive piano riff shadowed by the electric guitar filling space along with Wrencher's harmonica. The four-to-the-floor boogie of "Come On Over," another Wrencher original, rolls, twists, and turns on his harmonica's woven lines, his huge, ringing voice moving into a guttural groove colored by Taylor's lead guitar. This is a Joe Turner-styled shouter, but Wrencher's voice makes it so immediate, so full of cracks and splinters, it's virtually alive. The album's final track, "I'm a Root Man," one of Wrencher's own, is a slow to mid-tempo blues with a call-and-response line that acts as nothing but a vehicle for the author's storytelling way of singing. It is sensual, raw, and full of the kind of otherworldly life listeners seldom hear in blues records anymore. This set is a treasure. Period. –Thom Jurek

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