Blues

ABC Of The Blues CD51 (2010)

2012-02-18T12:55:44Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 51 – Bukka White & Josh White (2010)

CD 51 – Bukka White & Josh White

51-01 Bukka White – Good Gin Blues
51-02 Bukka White – Shake ‘em On Down				play
51-03 Bukka White – When Can I Change My Clothes?
51-04 Bukka White – High Fever Blues
51-05 Bukka White – Bukka’s Jitterbug Swing
51-06 Bukka White – District Attorney Blues
51-07 Bukka White – Strange Place Blues
51-08 Bukka White – Sleepy My Blues
51-09 Bukka White – Pinebluff, Arkansas
51-10 Bukka White – Fixin’ to Die Blues
51-11 Josh White – Uncle Sam Says
51-12 Josh White – Jim Crow Train
51-13 Josh White – Bad Housing Blues
51-14 Josh White – Southern Exposure
51-15 Josh White – Defence Factory Blues
51-16 Josh White – Prison Bound						play
51-17 Josh White – Hard Time Blues
51-18 Josh White – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
51-19 Josh White – One Meat Ball
51-20 Josh White – Hard Times Blues

Houston area native Booker T. Washington White (c. 1904–1977) was one of the most expressive vocalists and powerful slide guitarists in the blues. A remarkable lyricist as well, he recorded such classics as “Shake ‘Em On Down” and “Fixin’ to Die Blues” between 1930 and 1940 under the names Washington White or Bukka White. An important influence on his cousin B. B. King, White enjoyed a second career as a performer and recording artist beginning in 1963.

White recalled, in a 1976 interview with Robin Mathis of Houston radio station WCPC, that he was born about five miles south of Houston on the farm of Willie Harrington. Various documents list his birth date as November 12, between 1900 and 1909, but the earliest census data suggest 1904. His father John White, a multi-instrumentalist who performed at local gatherings, gave him his first guitar and other local musicians taught him his signature bottleneck slide technique. He further developed his skills on guitar and piano during stays in Tallahatchie County (in the Delta) and St. Louis. At sixteen White married for the first of several times, but was soon back to rambling across the South and Midwest.

Recording agent Ralph Lembo of Itta Bena arranged for White to record his first blues and gospel songs in 1930 in Memphis. In 1937 White recorded a minor hit, “Shake ‘Em On Down,” in Chicago, but that year he was also sentenced for a shooting incident to Parchman Penitentiary, where John Lomax of the Library of Congress recorded him in 1939. After his release White recorded twelve of his best-known songs at a Chicago session in 1940. During the war he settled in Memphis and worked at a defense plant. In Memphis he also performed with blues legend Frank Stokes, among others, and helped his cousin B.B. King become established on the local music scene. After he began to tour and record again in the 1960s White, still a skilled and energetic performer, became a popular figure on the folk music circuit and traveled as far as Mexico and Europe. On May 27, 1976, White returned to Houston as the featured artist at the city’s bicentennial celebration. He died in Memphis on February 26, 1977.

Other notable singers from the Houston area include brothers Cleave (born c. 1928) and Clay Graham (b. 1936) of the famed gospel group the Pilgrim Jubilees, who were raised in the Horse Nation community. Otho Lee Gaines (1914-1987) of Buena Vista was the founder and bass singer of the popular vocal group the Delta Rhythm Boys. Milan Williams (1948- 2006) of Okolona was a founding member and keyboardist of the R&B group the Commodores, and wrote or cowrote many of their songs. Other blues artists from the area include vocalist Willie Buck (b. 1937) of Houston and guitarist C. D. Dobbs (1917-1993) of Okolona. The music of famous Chickasaw County native Bobbie Gentry (born Roberta Lee Streeter in 1944 and best known as a pop or country singer) borrowed heavily from soul and blues. In turn, her classic 1967 recording, “Ode to Billie Joe,” has been performed by countless African American soul, blues, and jazz performers. --- msbluestrail.org

Josh White (born Joshua Daniel White in Greenville, South Carolina, 11 February 1914 or 1915; died Manhasset, New York, 5 September 1969) was an American folk, blues, and gospel singer and guitarist.

White was amongst the first blues performers to attract a large white and middle-class African American following, transcending the typical barriers at the time associating blues with a rural and working-class African American audience, and performed in prestigious night clubs and theatres during the 1930s and 1940s. His best known song at the time was probably “Jelly, Jelly”, He recorded in a wide variety of contexts, from recordings in which he was accompanied only by his own guitar playing to others in which he was backed by jazz groups and gospel vocal groups. He was prominently associated with the civil rights movement in the 1940s.

Some of his involvement in political causes in the 1940s resulted in him being blacklisted.Controversially, to escape the blacklist, he testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee regarding Communist influence in the entertainment industry and African-American community. He defended his testimony as a friendly witness to HUAC by claiming that the scope of his testimony was limited, that he did not state anything that was not already known, and that he was sincerely opposed to Communism. However, his testimony affected his posthumous reputation, which has only begun to recover in recent years.

From the mid-1950s until his death, he primarily performed at folk music venues and festivals. He was seen as an influence by Ray Charles, who similarly broke considerable barriers that had hampered blues musicians in the past.

On 26 June 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a 32-cent postage stamp honoring Josh White.

Josh White performed the version of “House of the Rising Sun” that influenced the famous version by The Animals. He also played a version of “In My Time of Dying” (also known as “Jesus Gunna Make Up My Dyin’ Bed”, which was covered by Led Zeppelin as In My Time of Dying.

Josh White’s son, Josh White Jr., is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, educator, and social activist. ---last.fm

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD50 (2010)

2012-02-17T09:48:50Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 50 – Sonny Boy Williamson I & Sonny Boy Williamson II (2010)

CD 50 – Sonny Boy Williamson I & Sonny Boy Williamson II

50-01 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Black Gal Blues
50-02 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Bad Luck Blues
50-03 Sonny Boy Williamson I – My Black Name Blues
50-04 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Stop Breaking Down
50-05 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Train Fare Blues
50-06 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Check Up on My Baby Blues
50-07 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Ho Doo Hoo Doo					play
50-08 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Shake the Boogie
50-09 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Welfare Store Blues
50-10 Sonny Boy Williamson I – Better Cut That Out
50-11 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Don’t Start Me to Talkin’
50-12 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Keep It to Yourself
50-13 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Fattening Frogs for Snakes
50-14 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Wake Up Baby
50-15 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Your Funeral and My Trial
50-16 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Cross My Heart
50-17 Sonny Boy Williamson II – I Don’t Know
50-18 Sonny Boy Williamson II – All My Love in Vain				play
50-19 Sonny Boy Williamson II – Dissatisfied
50-20 Sonny Boy Williamson II – 99
50-21 Sonny Boy Williamson II – The Key (To Your Door)

Easily the most important harmonica player of the prewar era, John Lee Williamson almost single-handedly made the humble mouth organ a worthy lead instrument for blues bands -- leading the way for the amazing innovations of Little Walter and a platoon of others to follow. If not for his tragic murder in 1948 while on his way home from a Chicago gin mill, Williamson would doubtless have been right there alongside them, exploring new and exciting directions.

It can safely be noted that Williamson made the most of his limited time on the planet. Already a harp virtuoso in his teens, the first Sonny Boy (Rice Miller would adopt the same moniker down in the Delta) learned from Hammie Nixon and Noah Lewis and rambled with Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell before settling in Chicago in 1934.

Williamson's extreme versatility and consistent ingenuity won him a Bluebird recording contract in 1937. Under the direction of the ubiquitous Lester Melrose, Sonny Boy Williamson recorded prolifically for Victor both as a leader and behind others in the vast Melrose stable (including Robert Lee McCoy and Big Joe Williams, who in turn played on some of Williamson's sides).

Williamson commenced his sensational recording career with a resounding bang. His first vocal offering on Bluebird was the seminal "Good Morning School Girl," covered countless times across the decades. That same auspicious date also produced "Sugar Mama Blues" and "Blue Bird Blues," both of them every bit as classic in their own right.

The next year brought more gems, including "Decoration Blues" and "Whiskey Headed Woman Blues." The output of 1939 included "T.B. Blues" and "Tell Me Baby," while Williamson cut "My Little Machine" and "Jivin' the Blues" in 1940. Jimmy Rogers apparently took note of Williamson's "Sloppy Drunk Blues," cut with pianist Blind John Davis and bassist Ransom Knowling in 1941; Rogers adapted the tune in storming fashion for Chess in 1954. The mother lode of 1941 also included "Ground Hog Blues" and "My Black Name," while the popular "Stop Breaking Down" (1945) found the harpist backed by guitarist Tampa Red and pianist Big Maceo.

Sonny Boy cut more than 120 sides in all for RCA from 1937 to 1947, many of them turning up in the postwar repertoires of various Chicago blues giants. His call-and-response style of alternating vocal passages with pungent harmonica blasts was a development of mammoth proportions that would be adopted across the board by virtually every blues harpist to follow in his wake.

But Sonny Boy Williamson wouldn't live to reap any appreciable rewards from his inventions. He died at the age of 34, while at the zenith of his popularity (his romping "Shake That Boogie" was a national R&B hit in 1947 on Victor), from a violent bludgeoning about the head that occurred during a strong-arm robbery on the South Side. "Better Cut That Out," another storming rocker later appropriated by Junior Wells, became a posthumous hit for Williamson in late 1948. It was the very last song he had committed to posterity. Wells was only one young harpist to display his enduring allegiance; a teenaged Billy Boy Arnold had recently summoned up the nerve to knock on his idol's door to ask for lessons. The accommodating Sonny Boy Williamson was only too happy to oblige, a kindness Arnold has never forgotten (nor does he fail to pay tribute to his eternal main man every chance he gets). Such is the lasting legacy of the blues' first great harmonicist. ---Bill Dahl, Rovi

Aleck “Rice” Miller (died May 25, 1965) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He was also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, Little Boy Blue, The Goat and Footsie.

Born as Aleck Ford on the Sara Jones Plantation in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his date and year of birth are a matter of uncertainty. He claimed to have been born on December 5, 1899, but one researcher, David Evans, claims to have found census record evidence that he was born around 1912. His gravestone lists his date of birth as March 11, 1908.

He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered Big Joe Williams, Elmore James and Robert Lockwood, Jr., also known as Robert Junior Lockwood, who would play guitar on his later Checker Records sides. He was also associated with Robert Johnson during this period. Miller developed his style and raffish stage persona during these years. Willie Dixon recalled seeing Lockwood and Miller playing for tips in Greenville, Mississippi in the 1930s. He entertained audiences with novelties such inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands.

In 1941 Miller was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour on radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas with Lockwood. It was at this point that the radio program’s sponsor, Max Moore, began billing Miller as Sonny Boy Williamson, apparently in an attempt to capitalize on the fame of the well known Chicago-based harmonica player and singer John Lee Williamson (Sonny Boy Williamson I). Although John Lee Williamson was a major blues star who had already released dozens of successful and widely influential records under the name “Sonny Boy Williamson” from 1937 onward, Aleck Miller would later claim to have been the first to use the name, and some blues scholars believe that Miller’s assertion he was born in 1899 was a ruse to convince audiences he was old enough to have used the name before John Lee Williamson, who was born in 1914 (this is made somewhat less likely, however, by the fact that Miller was certainly older than Williamson even if one does not accept the 1899 birthdate.) Whatever the methodology, Miller became commonly known as “Sonny Boy Williamson”, and Lockwood and the rest of his band were billed as the King Biscuit Boys.

In 1949 he relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas and lived with his sister and her husband, Howlin’ Wolf (later, for Checker Records, he did a parody of Howlin’ Wolf entitled “Like Wolf”). Sonny Boy started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950 selling the elixir Hadacol.

Sonny Boy also brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis: Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Robert Nighthawk and others, to perform on KWEM Radio.

In the 1940s Williamson married Mattie Gordon, who remained his wife until his death.

Williamson’s first recording session took place in 1951 for Lillian McMurry of Jackson, Mississippi’s Trumpet Records (three years after the death of John Lee Williamson, which for the first time allowed some legitimacy to Miller’s carefully worded claim to being “the one and only Sonny Boy Williamson”). McMurry later erected Williamson’s headstone, near Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1977.

When Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Sonny Boy’s recording contract was yielded to its creditors, who sold it to Chess Records in Chicago, Illinois. Sonny Boy had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of Elmore James’s band. It was during his Chess years that he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim, recording about 70 songs for Chess subsidiary Checker Records from 1955 to 1964.

In the early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze, recording with The Yardbirds and The Animals, and appearing on several TV broadcasts throughout Europe. According to the Led Zeppelin biography ‘Hammer of the Gods’, while in England Sonny Boy set his hotel room on fire while trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator. Robert Palmer’s “Deep Blues” mentions that during this tour he allegedly stabbed a man during a street fight and left the country abruptly.

Sonny Boy took a liking to the European fans, and while there had a custom-made, two-tone suit tailored personally for him, along with a bowler hat, matching umbrella, and an attaché case for his harmonicas. He appears credited as “Big Skol” on Roland Kirk’s live album ‘Kirk in Copenhagen’ (1963). One of his final recordings from England, in 1964, featured him singing “I’m Trying To Make London My Home” with Hubert Sumlin providing the guitar. Due to his many years of relating convoluted, highly fictionalized accounts of his life to friends and family, upon his return to the Delta, some expressed disbelief upon hearing of Sonny Boy’s touring across the Atlantic, visiting Europe, seeing the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and other landmarks, and recording there.

Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed around Helena, Arkansas. As fellow musicians Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis waited at the KFFA studios for Williamson on May 25, 1965, the 12:15 broadcast time was closing in and Sonny Boy was nowhere in sight. Peck left the radio station and headed out to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he’d been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before.

Williamson is buried on New Africa Rd. just outside Tutwiler, Mississippi at the site of the former Whitman Chapel cemetery. ---last.fm

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD49 (2010)

2012-02-15T13:57:54Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 49 – Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson & Big Joe Williams (2010)

CD 49 – Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson & Big Joe Williams

49-01 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Gangster of Love
49-02 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Too Tired
49-03 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Oh Baby
49-04 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Motor Head Baby
49-05 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Telephone Boogie
49-06 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – She Moves Me					play
49-07 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – One Room Country Shack
49-08 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Hot Little Mama
49-09 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – You’ve Been Gone Too Long
49-10 Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson – Love Bandit (Gangster of Love)
49-11 Big Joe Williams – Drop Down Blues
49-12 Big Joe Williams – Wanita
49-13 Big Joe Williams – Vitamin A
49-14 Big Joe Williams – Stack of Dollars
49-15 Big Joe Williams – Wild Cow Moan
49-16 Big Joe Williams – King Biscuit Stomp
49-17 Big Joe Williams – Baby Please Don’t Go				play
49-18 Big Joe Williams – Houselady Blues
49-19 Big Joe Williams – His Spirit Lives On
49-20 Big Joe Williams – She’s a Married Woman

"Reinvention" could just as easily have been Johnny "Guitar" Watson's middle name. The multi-talented performer parlayed his stunning guitar skills into a vaunted reputation as one of the hottest blues axemen on the West Coast during the 1950s. But that admirable trait wasn't paying the bills as the 1970s rolled in. So he totally changed his image to that of a pimp-styled funkster, enjoying more popularity than ever before for his down-and-dirty R&B smashes "A Real Mother for Ya" and "Superman Lover."

Watson's roots resided within the fertile blues scene of Houston. As a teen, he played with fellow Texas future greats Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland. But he left Houston for Los Angeles when he was only 15 years old. Back then, Watson's main instrument was piano; that's what he played with Chuck Higgins' band when the saxist cut "Motorhead Baby" for Combo in 1952 (Watson also handled vocal duties).

He was listed as Young John Watson when he signed with Federal in 1953. His first sides for the King subsidiary found him still tinkling the ivories, but by 1954, when he dreamed up the absolutely astonishing instrumental "Space Guitar," the youth had switched over to guitar. "Space Guitar" ranks with the greatest achievements of its era -- Watson's blistering rapid-fire attack, done without the aid of a pick, presages futuristic effects that rock guitarists still hadn't mastered another 15 years down the line.

Watson moved over to the Bihari Brothers' RPM label in 1955 and waxed some of the toughest upbeat blues of their time frame (usually under saxist Maxwell Davis's supervision). "Hot Little Mama," "Too Tired," and "Oh Baby" scorched the strings with their blazing attack; "Someone Cares for Me" was a churchy Ray Charles-styled slow-dragger, and "Three Hours Past Midnight" cut bone-deep with its outrageous guitar work and laid-back vocal (Watson's cool phrasing as a singer was scarcely less distinctive than his playing). He scored his first hit in 1955 for RPM with a note-perfect cover of New Orleanian Earl King's two-chord swamp ballad "Those Lonely Lonely Nights."

Though he cut a demo version of the tune while at RPM, Watson's first released version of "Gangster of Love" emerged in 1957 on Keen. Singles for Class ("One Kiss"), Goth, Arvee (the rocking introduction "Johnny Guitar"), and Escort preceded a hookup with Johnny Otis at King during the early '60s. He recut "Gangster" for King, reaching a few more listeners this time, and dented the R&B charts again in 1962 with his impassioned, violin-enriched blues ballad "Cuttin' In."

Never content to remain in one stylistic bag for long, Watson landed at Chess just long enough to cut a jazz album in 1964 that placed him back behind the 88s. Along with longtime pal Larry Williams, Watson rocked England in 1965 (their dynamic repartee was captured for posterity by British Decca). Their partnership lasted stateside through several singles and an LP for OKeh; among their achievements as a duo was the first vocal hit on "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" in 1967 (predating the Buckinghams by a few months).

Little had been heard of this musical chameleon before he returned decked out in funk threads during the mid-'70s. He hit with "I Don't Want to Be a Lone Ranger" for Fantasy before putting together an incredible run at DJM Records paced by "A Real Mother for Ya" in 1977 and an updated "Gangster of Love" the next year.

After a typically clever "Strike on Computers" nicked the R&B lists in 1984, Watson again seemed to fall off the planet. But counting this remarkable performer out was always a mistake. Bow Wow, his 1994 album for Al Bell's Bellmark logo, returned him to prominence and earned a Grammy nomination for best contemporary blues album, even though its contents were pure old-school funk. Sadly, in the midst of a truly heartwarming comeback campaign, Watson passed away while touring Japan in 1996. ---Bill Dahl, allmusic.com

Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because -- as with other older Delta artists -- if you played with him you played by his rules.

As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago. He recorded through five decades for Vocalion, OKeh, Paramount, Bluebird, Prestige, Delmark, and many others. According to Charlie Musselwhite, he and Big Joe kicked off the blues revival in Chicago in the '60s.

When appearing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at The Fickle Pickle, Williams played an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music one would likely ever hear.

Anyone who wants to learn Delta blues must one day come to grips with the idea that the guitar is a drum as well as a melody-producing instrument. A continuous, African-derived musical tradition emphasizing percussive techniques on stringed instruments from the banjo to the guitar can be heard in the music of Delta stalwarts Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, and Bukka White. Each employed decidedly percussive techniques, beating on his box, knocking on the neck, snapping the strings, or adding buzzing or sizzling effects to augment the instrument's percussive potential. However, Big Joe Williams, more than any other major recording artist, embodied the concept of guitar-as-drum, bashing out an incredible series of riffs on his G-tuned nine-string for over 60 years. --- Barry Lee Pearson, allmusic.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD48 (2010 )

2012-02-14T09:46:49Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 48 – Sippie Wallace & Peetie Wheatstraw (2010)

CD 48 – Sippie Wallace & Peetie Wheatstraw

48-01 Sippie Wallace – I’m a Mighty Tight Woman
48-02 Sippie Wallace – Murder’s Gonna Be My Crime
48-03 Sippie Wallace – Suitcase
48-04 Sippie Wallace – Special Delivery Blues
48-05 Sippie Wallace – The Flood Blues
48-06 Sippie Wallace – Dead Drunk Blues
48-07 Sippie Wallace – A Man for Every Day in the Week
48-08 Sippie Wallace – Jack of Diamond Blues			play
48-09 Sippie Wallace – A Jealous Woman
48-10 Sippie Wallace – The Mail Train Blues
48-11 Peetie Wheatstraw – Devil’s Son-In-Law
48-12 Peetie Wheatstraw – Shake That Thing
48-13 Peetie Wheatstraw – Gangster’s Blues
48-14 Peetie Wheatstraw – Come Over and See Me
48-15 Peetie Wheatstraw – Cake Alley
48-16 Peetie Wheatstraw – Shack Bully Stomp
48-17 Peetie Wheatstraw – Tight Time Project
48-18 Peetie Wheatstraw – Working on the Project
48-19 Peetie Wheatstraw – Weeping Willow Blues
48-20 Peetie Wheatstraw – Peetie Wheatstraw Stomp		play

A classic female blues singer from the '20s, Wallace kept performing and recording until her death. She was a major influence on a young Bonnie Raitt, who recorded several of Wallace's songs and performed live with her.

The daughter of a Baptist deacon, Sippie Wallace (born Beulah Thomas) was born and raised in Houston. As a child, she sang and played piano in church. Before she was in her teens, she began performing with her brother, pianist Hersal Thomas. By the time she was in her midteens, she had left Houston to pursue a musical career, singing in a number of tent shows and earning a dedicated fan base. In 1915, she moved to New Orleans with Hersal. Two years later, she married Matt Wallace.

In 1923, Sippie, Hersal, and their older brother George moved to Chicago, where Sippie became part of the city's jazz scene. By the end of the year, she had earned a contract with OKeh Records. Her first two songs for the label, "Shorty George" and "Up the Country Blues," were hits, and Sippie soon became a star. Throughout the '20s, she produced a series of singles that were nearly all hits. Wallace's OKeh recordings featured a number of celebrated jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Eddie Heywood, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams; both Hersal and George Thomas performed on Sippie's records as well, in addition to supporting her at concerts. Between 1923 and 1927, she recorded over 40 songs for OKeh. Many of the songs that were Wallace originals or co-written by Sippie and her brothers.

In 1926, Hersal Thomas died of food poisoning, but Sippie Wallace continued to perform and record. Within a few years, however, she stopped performing regularly. After her contract with OKeh was finished in the late '20s, she moved to Detroit in 1929. In the early '30s, Wallace stopped recording, only performing the occasional gig. In 1936, both George Thomas and her husband Matt died. Following their deaths, Sippie joined the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit, where she was an organist and vocalist; she stayed with the church for the next 40 years.

Between 1936 and 1966, Wallace was inactive on the blues scene -- she only performed a handful of concerts and cut a few records. In 1966, she was lured out of retirement by her friend Victoria Spivey, who convinced Sippie to join the thriving blues and folk festival circuit. Wallace not only joined the circuit, she began recording again. Her first new album was a collection of duets with Spivey, appropriately titled Sippie Wallace & Victoria Spivey, which was recorded in 1966; the album wasn't released until 1970. Also in 1966, Wallace recorded Sippie Wallace Sings the Blues for Storyville, which featured support from musicians like Little Brother Montgomery and Roosevelt Sykes. The album was quite popular, as were Sippie's festival performances.

In 1970, Sippie Wallace suffered a stroke, but she was able to continue recording and performing, although not as frequently as she had before. In 1982, Bonnie Raitt -- who had long claimed Sippie as a major influence -- helped Wallace land a contract with Atlantic Records. Raitt produced the resulting album, Sippie, which was released in 1983. Sippie won the W.C. Handy Award for best blues album of the year and was nominated for a Grammy. The album turned out to be Sippie Wallace's last recording -- she died in 1986, when she was 88 years old. ---Cub Koda, allmusic.com

Peetie Wheatstraw was the name adopted by singer William Bunch, taking it from Black American folklore. According to author Ralph Ellison, who made use of the Wheatstraw legend to model characters in his novels Invisible Man and Juneteenth, "Peetie Wheatstraw" was the evil half of a twin personality whose challenge was invoked at the start of a pool game. He was "the Devil's Son-In-Law" or "the High Sheriff of Hell," in search of his other half, the "Lord God Stingerroy" to shoot him a game. Nothing is known of the early life of William Bunch, other than that he was born in Ripley, Tennessee and raised in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. In 1929, he arrived in East St. Louis, already using the name Peetie Wheatstraw. Allegedly, as Wheatstraw, Bunch was also spreading the rumor that he had been to the "crossroads" and had sold his soul to the Prince of Darkness in exchange for success as a musician.

Without regard for the validity of Wheatstraw's claims, this self-promotion paid off in short order. Peetie Wheatstraw soon became a popular performer in East St. Louis and his fame quickly spread to Chicago. At a time when most record companies were cutting their entire blues rosters in order to survive the depression, Peetie Wheatstraw suddenly became a hot item. Wheatstraw began his recording career singing vocal duets with the unknown "Neckbones" (possibly J.D. Short) for ARC on September 13, 1930 and continued recording on his own into the early part of 1931. After an isolated session for Bluebird in September, 1931, Wheatstraw returned to ARC, and then moved to Decca in 1934, where the bulk of his best recordings were made. Peetie Wheatstraw recorded in every year of the 1930s save 1933, ultimately producing 175 sides in all with only one rejection, an enormous total for a blues artist in the pre-war period. This figure does not include recordings made by Wheatstraw sitting in on records made by his frequent partner, Kokomo Arnold, or ones made with Amos Easton, a.k.a. Bumble Bee Slim.

In the only known photograph of Peetie Wheatstraw, he is shown holding a guitar; curious, as he was a primarily a piano player, although he may have played his own guitar on a couple of recording dates. On his records Wheatstraw usually required a guitarist to play with him, and had many excellent ones to choose from, including Kokomo Arnold, Lonnie Johnson, Charlie Jordan, Charlie McCoy, and Teddy Bunn, in addition to pianist Champion Jack Dupree. On some of his last dates, Peetie Wheatstraw recorded within a jazz inspired framework, collaborating with Lil Armstrong and trumpeter Jonah Jones. His true strength was not so much in terms of instrumental ability as it was his singing and the varied lyrical content of his songs, which dealt with topics such as loose women, alcohol, supernaturalism, gambling, suicide and murder. Robert Johnson cribbed so many lyrical ideas from the work of Peetie Wheatstraw that it's not even worth going into specific examples of that derivation here.

The sheer size of Peetie Wheatstraw's recorded output has worked against his reputation. Some blues experts have expressed the opinion that Wheatstraw's recordings are limited stylistically, lack variety and tend towards repetition. One hallmark of his style was the use of pet phrases for purposes of punctuation, most typically "Oh, well, well" in third verses of songs. On the contrary, it would seem that anyone who was thinking of formalizing aspects of blues songwriting in the 1930s would be hailed a harbinger of things to come, rather than blamed for a lack of imagination. In the later '30s, Peetie Wheatstraw's recording sessions were being held once every two or three months and consisted of six to eight songs per date, so he had to develop formulas in order to keep his content fresh. That Wheatstraw did so successfully was something that affected nearly every blues musician within hearing distance of one of his records. He was overwhelmingly popular throughout the 1930s, and he is credited in some quarters with being the artist who carried the blues from its lowly status as rural "devil's music" into the cities where, in time, it would grow, thrive and change to suit the needs of a new, urban audience.

Peetie Wheatstraw would not personally live to witness these future changes. Since his death, researchers have probed arduously in an attempt get at more information about him, interviewing his acquaintances and reviewing civic records. But even more than sixty years after his death practically nothing substantive is known about him or his life, despite his ambitious recording schedule and tremendous popularity. For someone cultivating the legend of a deal with the devil, Wheatstraw's death was eerily appropriate -- celebrating his 39th birthday, Wheatstraw and some friends decided to drive to the local market to pick up some liquor, and on their way out they tried to beat a railroad train that was coming down the tracks at full speed. Needless to say, they didn't make it. --- Uncle Dave Lewis. Rovi

download (mp3 @ kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD47 (2010)

2012-02-10T19:55:26Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 47 – Muddy Waters & Junior Wells (2010)

CD 47 – Muddy Waters & Junior Wells

47-01 Muddy Waters – Country Blues
47-02 Muddy Waters – I Be’s Troubled
47-03 Muddy Waters – Burr Clover Farm Blues
47-04 Muddy Waters – Take a Walk with Me
47-05 Muddy Waters – Burr Clover Blues
47-06 Muddy Waters – Walking Blues					play
47-07 Muddy Waters – I Can’t Be Satisfied
47-08 Muddy Waters – Gypsy Woman
47-09 Muddy Waters – I Feel Like Going Home
47-10 Muddy Waters – Little Anna Mae
47-11 Junior Wells – Hoodoo Man						play
47-12 Junior Wells – Junior’s Wail
47-13 Junior Wells – Tomorrow Night
47-14 Junior Wells – Please Throw This Poor Dog a Bone
47-15 Junior Wells – Blues Hit Big Town
47-16 Junior Wells – Bout the Break of Day
47-17 Junior Wells – So All Alone
47-18 Junior Wells – Cut That Out
47-19 Junior Wells – Ways Like an Angel
47-20 Junior Wells – Lord Lord

For better than three decades, Muddy Waters sat atop the fertile Chicago blues scene as its benevolent ruler, setting the style that others would follow and discovering the musicians that would help create the city's sound. As a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and band leader, Waters' shadow looms large over the contemporary blues and blues-rock worlds.

Born in the Mississippi Delta as McKinley Morganfield, he picked up the "Muddy Waters" nickname as a child, raised by his grandmother on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale. When musicologist Alan Lomax discovered Waters at Stovall's, the singer was already a well-known performer across the Delta. Waters made his first recordings in 1941 and '42 with Lomax for the Library of Congress.

Waters left the sharecropper's life behind and moved to Chicago in 1943. With the help of established star Big Bill Broonzy, Waters quickly became a fixture on the local blues scene. A 1947 recording session with pianist Sunnyland Slim featured Waters playing guitar, leading to a contract with the legendary Chess Records.

One of the songs recorded during that session was "I Can't Be Satisfied," which became a local sensation. Waters enjoyed his first national R&B hit a few months later with "I Feel Like Going Home."

Performing live is where Waters earned his reputation, though, with a band that initially included harp player Little Walter and guitarist Jimmy Rogers. Through the years, musicians like Otis Spann, James Cotton and Junior Wells would pass through Waters' bands.

Recording a number of R&B hits through the 1950s, Waters crossed over to a rock audience in the '60s, performing at folk festivals and rock clubs. Chess released a number of odd Waters albums through the decade, stylistically ranging from country blues to psychedelic rock.

Working with blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter, Waters recorded a trio of albums in the late-1970s that returned the artist to his blues roots and earned him a larger audience. Waters would later be inducted to the Blues and Rock & Roll Hall of Fames. --- Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com Guide

Junior Wells was considered the direct musical descendant of modern blues harmonica legends John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, “Sonny Boy” Williamson II (Rice Miller) and Little Walter Jacobs. An exponent of blues, funk and soul music, Wells developed a style incorporating all of those genres, and was a consummate stage performer who could back it all up.

Born Amos Blakemore in 1934, Junior was raised on a farm in rural West Memphis and Marion, Arkansas. He became intensely interested in the music flowing from the fertile blues culture of Memphis and learned harmonica from his cousin Little Junior Parker. After his parents separated, the wild and rebellious Junior moved with his mother to Chicago in 1946. There he discovered that music would be the most important thing in his life.

His teenage years were spent playing hooky from school, scrambling change from odd jobs and practicing his harmonica. His interest in the local blues musicians found the underage Junior sneaking into various clubs, vying to “sit-in” with bands. His earliest such escapade was in 1948 sneaking into the C & T Lounge where Tampa Red and Johnny Jones let the young harpist show his skills. A now famous incident was when Junior convinced his sister and her then-boyfriend, a Chicago policeman, to escort him to Sam's Ebony Lounge where the celebrated Muddy Waters band (with Little Walter Jacobs and Jimmy Rogers) were playing. “I went up to Muddy and told him I played harp...Muddy said he'd let me try. Little Walter said, “That little shrimp.” They stood me on a coke box to reach the mike and I made $45 in tips....Walter asked me if I ever played the sax before!”

When Little Walter left the Muddy Waters band to tour with his new found fame, Junior was called to replace him. Junior stayed on with Waters until 1952. In 1953, Wells was inducted into the army, but he didn't let this get in the way of

his music career - some of his first recording sessions done for the States label were done while he was AWOL. Upon his return from the army in 1955, Willie Dixon introduced Junior to Mel London, who recorded classic Wells' songs “Messin' With The Kid,” “Come On In This House,” and “Little By Little” for the Chief and Profile labels.

The 1960's found Junior working frequently with Chicago blues guitarist Buddy Guy. The duo gigged the clubs and became a regular fixture in the city. In 1965, Delmark Records released Junior's first album, the classic “Hoodoo Man Blues,” with Buddy Guy on guitar. The celebrated duo of Wells and Guy toured the world with the Rolling Stones in 1970, and went into the Atlantic studios in ’72 to record “Buddy Guy & Jr. Wells Play the Blues.” This album garnered them recognition, and the pair continued a long association of recording and playing through the late 1980's.

In 1974, Guy and Wells played the Montreaux Jazz Festival backed by Rolling Stones' bassist Bill Wyman, Terry Taylor, Dallas Taylor and Chicago blues pianist Pinetop Perkins. The explosive performance was captured on tape and released on Blind Pig Records in 1982. “Drinkin' TNT 'N' Smokin' Dynamite,” finds Guy and Wells in extraordinary form. Both artists went on to become internationally acclaimed blues legends and this stellar recording remains one of Blind Pig's most popular releases.

Wells was reunited with Delmark in the late ‘70’s where he released “On Tap,” (’75) and “Blues Hit Big Town.” (’77) He did one album for Alligator “Alone and Acoustic,” in 1991. Junior signed with Telarc in ’93 and proceeded to put out records for them peaking with “Come On In This House,” in ’96, his most unadulterated blues record since his highly acclaimed “Hoodoo Man Blues,” of more than 30 years vintage. The idea was to team Wells with some of the era's top younger traditional blues guitarists - - Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Sonny Landreth, Bob Margolin, and John Mooney; to have those musicians, in various combinations, accompany Wells on a variety of slide guitars; and to concentrate on vintage Chicago and Delta blues. The result is a demonstration of the timeless appeal of classic blues done well. Wells' vocals are deep and manly; his harp playing is high- pitched, and in synch with the true feeling of the session. A well received and acknowledged recording, which was nominated for a Grammy.

To say that Wells is the genuine article is to understate the matter. He hailed from the hard knock school of blues harp masters. His is the sound of the Chicago streets, the Maxwell Street market, the juke joints, the after-hours sessions, the road-weary gigs and the hostile territory into which any artist must go to prove his worth. The beauty of it is that after all those years, in the end Junior Wells didn't have anything at all to prove. Junior Wells passed away in 1998. --- allaboutjazz.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD46 (2010)

2012-02-08T19:39:59Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 46 – T-Bone Walker & Jimmy Witherspoon (2010)

CD 46 – T-Bone Walker & Jimmy Witherspoon

46-01 T-Bone Walker – They Call It Stormy Monday
46-02 T-Bone Walker – It’s a Low Down Dirty Deal
46-03 T-Bone Walker – Bobby Sox Blues
46-04 T-Bone Walker – Mean Old World
46-05 T-Bone Walker – Evening
46-06 T-Bone Walker – Long Skirt Baby Blues
46-07 T-Bone Walker – Midnight Blues						play
46-08 T-Bone Walker – I’m Still in Love with You
46-09 T-Bone Walker – Low Down Dirty Shame (Married Woman Blues)
46-10 T-Bone Walker – T-Bone Jumps Again
46-11 Jimmy Witherspoon – I’m Just a Lady’s Man
46-12 Jimmy Witherspoon – Love My Baby
46-13 Jimmy Witherspoon – Love and Friendship
46-14 Jimmy Witherspoon – Geneva Blues aka Evil Woman
46-15 Jimmy Witherspoon – I’m Just Wandering (Part 1)
46-16 Jimmy Witherspoon – I’m Just Wandering (Part 2)
46-17 Jimmy Witherspoon – Good Jumping aka Jump Children
46-18 Jimmy Witherspoon – Thelma Lee Blues					play
46-19 Jimmy Witherspoon – The Doctor Knows His Business aka Doctor Blues
46-20 Jimmy Witherspoon – Slow Your Speed

Aaron Thibeaux Walker or T-Bone Walker or Oak Cliff T-Bone (May , 1910 — March, 1975) was an American blues guitarist, singer, pianist and songwriter who was one of the most important pioneers of the electric guitar. His electric guitar solos were among the first heard on modern blues recordings and helped set a standard that is still followed.

Walker was born in Linden, Texas of African and Cherokee descent. His parents, Rance Walker and Movelia Jimerson were both musicians. Walker married Vida Lee in 1935 and had three children with her. He died March, 1975.

His distinctive sound developed in 1942 when Walker recorded “Mean Old World” for Capitol Records. Much of his output was recorded from 1946–1948 on Black & White Records, including 1947’s “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)”, with its famous opening line, “They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad”. He followed up with his “T-Bone Shuffle” and “Let Your Hair Down, Baby, Let’s Have a Natural Ball”. Both are considered blues classics. “Stormy Monday” was a favorite live number for The Allman Brothers Band.

Throughout his career Walker worked with the top quality musicians, including Teddy Buckner (trumpet), Lloyd Glenn (piano), Billy Hadnott (bass), and Jack McVea (tenor sax).

Following his work with Black & White, he recorded from 1950-54 for Imperial Records (backed by Dave Bartholomew). Walker’s only record in the next five years was T-Bone Blues, recorded over three widely separated sessions in 1955, 1956 and 1959, and finally released by Atlantic Records in 1960.

By the early 1960s, Walker’s career had slowed down, in spite of a hyped appearance at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 with Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon, among others. A few critically acclaimed albums followed, such as I Want a Little Girl. Walker recorded in his last years, 1968 - 1975, for Robin Hemingway’s Jitney Jane Songs music publishing company, and he won a Grammy Award in 1971 for Good Feelin’ (Polydor), produced by Robin Hemingway. “Fly Walker Airlines”, Polydor, also produced by Hemingway, was released in 1973.

T-Bone Walker died in 1975, at the age of 64. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Walker’s influence extended beyond his music. Chuck Berry called Walker and Louis Jordan (as well as Jordan’s guitarist, Carl Hogan) his main influences. T-Bone Walker was the childhood hero of Jimi Hendrix, and Hendrix imitated some of Walker’s ways throughout his life. Years before Hendrix, Walker was playing guitar with his teeth or in strange positions. Walker was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Last.fm

Jimmy “Spoon” Witherspoon (8 August 1920-18 September 1997) was a blues and rnb singer.

Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas, his father - a railway worker - sang in local choirs, and his mother played piano. He didn’t pursue music professionally until after his stint in the Merchant Marines in World War II. On his return to the Unites States in 1944, he replaced Walter Brown in Jay McShann’s band, and performed with Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker.

Witherpoon’s first hit record was “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”, which he followed in 1949 with a reworking of the Leroy Carr song “In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down”. His hit “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” was one of the biggest records of the era, and stayed on the Billboard charts for 34 weeks. Spoon made at least 200 recordings, and was one of the few true giants of the post-war blues boom.

Witherspoon recorded for a variety of labels through the 1950s, including cornerstone sides with Swingtime, Federal, Chess, RCA, and even a Dixieland session with The Wilbur de Paris New Orleans Jazz Band for Atlantic in 1956. His long career included performances on jazz stages around the world, from Carnegie Hall to the Newport Jazz Festival, touring Japan with Count Basie, and European tours with Buck Clayton’s All Stars. Witherspoon managed to span the worlds of blues, R&B, and jazz with his deep baritone voice and unique style.

Witherspoon died in Los Angeles, California at the age of seventy-seven. ---last.fm

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD45 (2010)

2012-02-07T10:05:45Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 45 - Big Joe Turner & Eddie Cleanhead Vinson (2010)

CD 45 - Big Joe Turner & Eddie Cleanhead Vinson

45-01 Big Joe Turner – Blues in the Night
45-02 Big Joe Turner – Sun Risin’ Blues
45-03 Big Joe Turner – S.K. Blues Part 1
45-04 Big Joe Turner – Nobody in Mind
45-05 Big Joe Turner – Blues on Central Avenue
45-06 Big Joe Turner – Ice Man
45-07 Big Joe Turner – Cry Baby Blues						play
45-08 Big Joe Turner – Rebecca
45-09 Big Joe Turner – It’s the Same Old Story
45-10 Big Joe Turner – Chewed Up Grass
45-11 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Too Many Women Blues
45-12 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Just a Dream
45-13 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – King for a Day Blues
45-14 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Railroad Porter’s Blues		play
45-15 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Gonna Send You Back Where I Got You From
45-16 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – When I Get Drunk
45-17 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Oil Man Blues
45-18 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Ever-Ready Blue
45-19 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – I’ve Been So Good
45-20 Eddie Cleanhead Vinson – Bonus Pay

Providing an essential link between the blues and rock 'n' roll, Big Joe Turner is best remembered for his classic 1954 hit "Shake, Rattle and Roll," one of the pioneering songs of rock 'n' roll. Although Turner enjoyed his greatest recorded success with Atlantic Records between 1951 and 1956, rock 'n' roll was actually his second (or third) successful musical career. He started out as an important member of the burgeoning Kansas City jazz scene and helped popularize boogie woogie in the late '30s with pianist Pete Johnson. He also pursued an influential career as one of the most potent blues shouters of the '40s. He was one of the few jazz and blues singers of his generation to become popular with the teenage rock 'n' roll audience. After spending the '60s in relative obscurity, Big Joe Turner returned to jazz and blues, singing on the Pablo label with the likes of Count Basie and Jimmy Witherspoon.

Big Joe Turner began singing in Kansas City clubs in his early teens and formed a musical partnership with boogie woogie pianist Pete Johnson near the end of the '20s. Touring with regional bands led by Bennie Moten and Count Basie, among others, Turner first went to New York in 1936, returning in 1938 with Pete Johnson to perform on Benny Goodman's Camel Caravan CBS radio show and the legendary Spirituals to Swing concerts at Carnegie Hall, the first concert series to promote black music to white audiences.

Big Joe Turner soon took up a four-year residence at the exclusive Cafe Society Uptown and Downtown clubs in New York with Johnson, often joined by Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. The three pianists became known as the Boogie Woogie Boys, and Turner's debut recording of "Roll 'em Pete" with Johnson launched the boogie woogie craze. Usually accompanied by Johnson, Turner recorded for National Records from 1938 to 1940, producing the classic "Cherry Red" in 1939. He then recorded for Decca from 1940 to 1944, usually backed by Johnson, but occasionally accompanied by Willie "The Lion" Smith, Art Tatum or Freddie Slack. In 1941 Turner traveled to Hollywood to appear in Duke Ellington's "Jump For Joy" revue.

Subsequently based largely on the West Coast, Big Joe Turner continued to record with Johnson after World War II, first for National (1945-47), where he scored a smash rhythm and blues hit with "My Gal's a Jockey." His National recordings were later issued on Savoy. Through 1950, Turner recorded for labels such as Aladdin, RPM, Downbeat/Swingtime, MGM, Freedom, and Imperial (in New Orleans). In 1949, for National, he recorded "Battles of the Blues" with rival Wynonie Harris, scoring his second R&B hit in 1950 with "Still in the Dark" on Freedom. The Aladdin and Imperial recordings were later issued on EMI, and the Swingtime recordings on Arhoolie.

After ending his partnership with Pete Johnson, Big Joe Turner signed with Atlantic Records in 1951, initiating a series of smash R&B hits with the ballad "Chains of Love," a moderate pop hit covered by Pat Boone in 1956. "Chill Is On" and the ballad "Sweet Sixteen" (later associated with B.B. King) became smash R&B hits, as did "Honey Hush" (also a major pop hit), recorded in New Orleans, and "TV Mama," recorded in Chicago with guitarist Elmore James. The classic "Shake, Rattle and Roll" became a top R&B and major pop hit in the spring of 1954, and the song was later covered by Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.

Big Joe Turner continued to score R&B smashes through 1956 with "Well All Right," "Flip, Flop and Fly," "Hide and Seek," the two-sided "Morning, Noon and Night" - "The Chicken and the Hawk (Up, Up and Away)," "Corrine Corrina" (a moderate pop hit), and "Lipstick, Powder and Paint." In 1956 Turner once again teamed with Pete Johnson for the classic Boss of the Blues album. Turner appeared in the 1956 film Shake, Rattle and Roll and toured with the rock 'n' roll package shows of Red Prysock and Alan Freed in 1956 and 1957, respectively. Turner managed two more major pop-only hits with "Love Roller Coaster" and "(I'm Gonna) Jump For Joy." He appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958 and then toured Europe for the first time. He left the Atlantic label in 1961.

In the '60s, Big Joe Turner moved to Los Angeles, where he occasionally recorded for Kent and Coral while continuing to tour Europe and America regularly. He performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1964 and toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1966. Recording for the BluesWay label in 1967, Turner worked with the Johnny Otis Show in the late '60s, appearing with his show at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1970. In 1971 Turner recorded for the French Black & Blue label, later issued on Evidence Records, and subsequently returned to his jazz and blues style for two albums with Count Basie on Pablo Records. He appeared with Basie in the 1974 documentary film on Kansas City jazz, "The Last of the Blue Devils."

Big Joe Turner recorded albums for Pablo throughout the '70s, accompanied by Pee Wee Crayton, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge, and alto saxophonist Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, among others. By the early '80s, Turner was suffering from diabetes and arthritis, walking on crutches and having to perform sitting down. He recorded with Roomful of Blues in 1983 and Knocky Parker and the Houserockers in 1984, recording his final album with Jimmy Witherspoon in 1985. He died of a heart attack in Inglewood, California, on November 24, 1995, at the age of seventy-four. Big Joe Turner was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (December 18, 1917 – July 2, 1988) was an American jump blues, jazz, bebop and R&B alto saxophonist and blues shouter. He was nicknamed Cleanhead after an incident in which his hair was accidentally destroyed by lye contained in a hair straightening product.

Vinson was born in Houston, Texas. He was a member of the horn section in Milton Larkin's orchestra, which he joined in the late 1930s. At various times, he sat next to Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, and Tom Archia, while other members of the band included Cedric Haywood and Wild Bill Davis. After exiting Larkin's employment in 1941, Vinson picked up a few vocal tricks while on tour with bluesman Big Bill Broonzy. He then moved to New York and joined the Cootie Williams Orchestra from 1942 to 1945, recording such tunes as "Cherry Red". Vinson struck out on his own in 1945, forming his own large band, signing with Mercury Records, and enjoying a double-sided hit in 1947 with his R&B chart-topper "Old Maid Boogie", and the song that would prove to be his signature number, "Kidney Stew Blues".

Vinson's jazz leanings were probably heightened during 1952-1953, when his band included a young John Coltrane. In the late 1960s, touring in a strict jazz capacity with Jay McShann, Vinson's career took an upswing. In the early 1960s Vinson moved to Los Angeles and began working with the Johnny Otis Revue. A 1970 appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Otis spurred a bit of a comeback for Vinson. Throughout the 1970s he worked high-profile blues and jazz sessions for Count Basie, Johnny Otis, Roomful of Blues, Arnett Cobb, and Buddy Tate. He also composed steadily, including "Tune Up" and "Four", both of which have been incorrectly attributed to Miles Davis. Vinson recorded extensively during his fifty-odd year career and performed regularly in Europe and the U.S..

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD44 (2010)

2012-02-05T10:07:45Z

ABC Of The Blues CD 44 - Sonny Terry & Eddie Taylor (2010)

CD 44 - Sonny Terry & Eddie Taylor

44-01 Sonny Terry – Bye Bye Baby Blues
44-02 Sonny Terry – I Don’t Care How Long
44-03 Sonny Terry – Blues and Worried Man
44-04 Sonny Terry – Harmonica Blues					play
44-05 Sonny Terry – Somebody’s Been Talkin’
44-06 Sonny Terry – Harmonica Stomp
44-07 Sonny Terry – Twelve Gates to the City
44-08 Sonny Terry – You Got to Have Your Dollar
44-09 Sonny Terry – Don’t Want No Skinny Woman
44-10 Sonny Terry – Blowing the Blues
44-11 Eddie Taylor – Bad Boy
44-12 Eddie Taylor – Big Town Playboy
44-13 Eddie Taylor – Find My Baby
44-14 Eddie Taylor – Stroll Out West
44-15 Eddie Taylor – E.T. Blues
44-16 Eddie Taylor – Don’t Knock at My Door
44-17 Eddie Taylor – I’m Gonna Love You				play
44-18 Eddie Taylor – Leave This Neighborhood
44-19 Eddie Taylor – I’m Sitting Here
44-20 Eddie Taylor – Ride’em On Down

Harmonica player Sonny Terry was one of the initial bluesmen who crossed over into areas not normally associated with the genre before he came along. Along with his partner, guitarist Brownie McGhee, Terry played on numerous folk recordings with the likes of Woody Guthrie, developed an acting career showcased on television and Broadway, and never compromised his unique high-pitched penetrating harmonica style called whoopin'.

Sonny Terry was born Saunders Terrell on October 24, 1911, in Greensboro, GA. He lost his sight by the time he was 16 in two separate accidents. His father played harmonica in local functions around town and taught Terry at an early age. Realizing his eyesight would keep him from pursuing a profession in farming, Terry decided instead to be a blues singer. He began traveling to nearby Raleigh and Durham, NC, performing on street corners for tips. In 1934, he befriended the popular guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller convinced Terry to move to Durham, where the two immediately gained a strong local following. By 1937, they were offered an opportunity to go to New York and record for the Vocalion label. A year later, Terry would be back in New York taking part in John Hammond's legendary Spirituals to Swing concert, where he performed one of his memorable tunes, "Mountain Blues." Upon returning to Durham, Terry continued playing regularly with Fuller and also met his future partner, guitarist Brownie McGhee, who would accompany Terry off and on for the next two decades. McGhee was initially sent to look after Terry by Blind Boy's manager, J.B. Long. Long figured McGhee might get a chance to play some of the same shows as Terry.

A friendship developed between the two men and following Fuller's death in 1941, Terry and McGhee moved to New York. The change proved fruitful as they immediately found steady work, playing concerts both as a duo and solo. Terry became an in-demand session player who started showing up regularly on the records of folk luminaries including Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. An acting role was also initiated at this time, in the long-running Broadway production of Finian's Rainbow in 1946. By the mid-'50s, Terry and McGhee began broadening their collective horizons and traveled extensively outside of New York. They released a multitude of recordings for labels like Folkways, Savoy, and Fantasy that crossed the boundaries of race, becoming well-known in folk and blues circles performing for black and white audiences. It was also in the mid-50s that Terry and McGhee accepted roles on Broadway, joining the cast of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, exposing them to an even broader audience.

In the early '60s, the duo performed at numerous folk and blues festivals around the world, while Terry found time to work with singer Harry Belafonte and in television commercials. Terry was constantly traveling throughout the '70s, stopping only long enough to write his instructional book, The Harp Styles of Sonny Terry. By the mid-'70s, the strain of being on the road developed into personal problems between McGhee and Terry. Unfortunately, they resigned their long partnership, divided by the bitterness of constant touring. Terry was still being discovered by a younger blues generation via the Johnny Winter-produced album Whoopin' for the Alligator label, featuring Winter and Willie Dixon. Winter had produced a comeback album for Muddy Waters (Hard Again) that helped rejuvenate his career, and he was attempting the same with Terry. By the '80s, Terry's age was catching up with him. He quit recording and only accepted sporadic live appearances. Terry passed away in 1986, the year he was inducted into the Blues Foundations Hall of Fame. ---Al Campbell, allmusic.com

When you're talking about the patented Jimmy Reed laconic shuffle sound, you're talking about Eddie Taylor just as much as Reed himself. Taylor was the glue that kept Reed's lowdown grooves from falling into serious disrepair. His rock-steady rhythm guitar powered the great majority of Reed's Vee-Jay sides during the 1950s and early '60s, and he even found time to wax a few classic sides of his own for Vee-Jay during the mid-'50s.

Eddie Taylor was as versatile a blues guitarist as anyone could ever hope to encounter. His style was deeply rooted in Delta tradition, but he could snap off a modern funk-tinged groove just as convincingly as a straight shuffle. Taylor witnessed Delta immortals Robert Johnson and Charley Patton as a lad, taking up the guitar himself in 1936 and teaching the basics of the instrument to his childhood pal Reed. After a stop in Memphis, he hit Chicago in 1949, falling in with harpist Snooky Pryor, guitarist Floyd Jones, and -- you guessed it -- his old homey Reed.

From Jimmy Reed's second Vee-Jay date in 1953 on, Eddie Taylor was right there to help Reed through the rough spots. Taylor's own Vee-Jay debut came in 1955 with the immortal "Bad Boy" (Reed returning the favor on harp). Taylor's second Vee-Jay single coupled two more classics, "Ride 'Em on Down" and "Big Town Playboy," and his last two platters for the firm, "You'll Always Have a Home" and "I'm Gonna Love You," were similarly inspired. But Taylor's records didn't sell in the quantities that Reed's did, so he was largely relegated to the role of sideman (he recorded behind John Lee Hooker, John Brim, Elmore James, Snooky Pryor, and many more during the '50s) until his 1972 set for Advent, I Feel So Bad, made it abundantly clear that this quiet, unassuming guitarist didn't have to play second fiddle to anyone. When he died in 1985, he left a void on the Chicago circuit that remains apparent even now. They just don't make 'em like Eddie Taylor anymore. ---Bill Dahl, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

ABC Of The Blues CD43 (2010)

2012-02-03T09:53:51Z

ABC Of The Blues.CD43 (2010)

CD 43 – Big Mama Thornton & Sister Rosetta Tharpe

43-01 Big Mama Thornton – Partnership Blues
43-02 Big Mama Thornton – I’m All Fed Up
43-03 Big Mama Thornton – Let Your Tears Fall Baby
43-04 Big Mama Thornton – They Call Me Big Mama
43-05 Big Mama Thornton – Hound Dog							play
43-06 Big Mama Thornton – Walking Blues
43-07 Big Mama Thornton – I’ve Searched the World Over		
43-08 Big Mama Thornton – I Smell a Rat
43-09 Big Mama Thornton – Nightmare
43-10 Big Mama Thornton – I Ain’t No Fool Neither
43-11 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Let That Liar Alone
43-12 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Sit Down
43-13 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – What’s the News
43-14 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Singin’ in My Soul
43-15 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – The Natural Facts
43-16 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread
43-17 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Nobody’s Fault but Mine		play
43-18 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Nobody Knows, Nobody Cares
43-19 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – All Over This World
43-20 Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Four or Five Times

Big Mama Thornton (Willie Mae Thornton, December 11, 1926, Montgomery, AL - July 25, 1984, Los Angeles, CA) was an American blues musician.

Her introduction to music, as with most fellow blues legends, started in the Baptist church. The daughter of a minister, she and her six siblings began to sing at a very early age. While still a child, Willie Mae taught herself to play the drums and harmonica, and by the age of 14, she had run away from home to make her career in secular music.

She joined Sammy Green’s “Hot Harlem Revue” and toured throughout the South in the 1940’s, first beginning her musical career in 1947. While touring Texas in 1948, Thornton left the Revue in favor of the state’s growing club scene, which she immersed herself in. It was during this time that she was discovered by Don Robey, a black entrepreneur who owned several clubs and record stores in the Houston, TX area. Impressed by her massive size (6 ft, 350+ lb),formidable multi-instrument abilities, and fiery stage presence, Robey signed her to his Peacock Records label, where he began the task of translating the forceful belter’s energy onto record.

Her big hit came, not from Robey’s capable pen, but from the young songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It was “Hound Dog,” which she recorded in 1953 with the Johnny Otis band. Big Mama Thornton always claimed to have written the song herself (a claim which may actually hold some validity), and her ferocious rendition of it ( complete with Big Mama’s growl and a nasty guitar line by Pete Lewis) held the #1 spot in the Billboard rhythm and blues charts for nine weeks. Unfortunately for Thornton, Elvis Presley’s smoother and bowdlerized version was a major pop hit in 1956 and successfully eclipsed her biggest claim to fame.

Thornton continued to tour the “chitlin’ circuit” as fans began to favour newer R&B sounds over blues. For some years, Big Mama suffered in obscurity like most of her fellow bluesmen. Her name gained wider prominence and her career enjoyed a significant resurgence as her song “Ball and Chain” was covered by Janis Joplin, making it a regular number in her repertoire. From that point onward, Thornton would remain a headliner at blues festivals, colleges, and clubs throughout the country and even in Europe. She began recording again, and released albums for the Arhoolie, Mercury, and Vanguard labels. Years of hard drinking and living began to take their toll, however, and by the late 1970s her health (and her trademark girth) had declined greatly. She nevertheless performed until her death at the age of 57 on July 25, 1984 in Los Angeles, where she was found dead from natural causes in the boarding house room in which she had been living. Johnny Otis conducted her funeral services, and she was laid to rest in Inglewood Park Cemetery. ---last.fm

“Sister” Rosetta Tharpe (March 20, 1915 – October 9, 1973) was a pioneering Gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock accompaniment. She became the first great recording star of Gospel music, first surfacing on the pop charts in 1939 with “This Train”, her version of the traditional gospel standard.

Willing to cross the line between sacred and secular by performing her inspirational music of ‘light’ in the ‘darkness’ of the nightclubs and concert halls with big bands behind her, her witty, idiosyncratic style also left a lasting mark on more conventional gospel artists

Born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began performing at age four, billed as “Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar playing miracle”, accompanying her mother, Church of God in Christ (COGIC) evangelist Katie Bell Nubin, who played mandolin and preached at tent revivals throughout the South. Exposed to both blues and jazz both in the South and after her family moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, she played blues and jazz in private, while performing gospel music in public settings. Her unique style reflected those secular influences: she bent notes the way that jazz artists did and picked guitar like Memphis Minnie.

Rosetta also crossed over to secular music in other ways. After marrying COGIC preacher Thomas Thorpe (from which “Tharpe” is a misspelling) in 1934 and moving to New York City, she recorded four sides with Decca Records backed by “Lucky” Millinder’s jazz orchestra. Her records caused an immediate furor: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of sacred and secular music, but secular audiences loved them. Appearances in John Hammond’s 1938 extravaganza “From Spirituals To Swing”, at the Cotton Club and Café Society and with Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman made her even more popular. Songs like “This Train” and “Rock Me”, which combined gospel themes with bouncy up-tempo arrangements, became smash hits among audiences with little previous exposure to gospel music.

Tharpe continued recording during World War II, one of only two gospel artists able to record V-discs for troops overseas. Her song “Strange Things Happening Every Day”, recorded in 1944 with Sammy Price, Decca’s house boogie woogie pianist, showcased her virtuosity as a guitarist and her witty lyrics and delivery. It was also the first gospel song to make Billboard’s “race records” Top Ten—something that Sister Rosetta Tharpe accomplished several more times in her career.

After the war Decca paired her with Marie Knight, a Sanctified shouter with a strong contralto and a more subdued style than Tharpe. Their hit “Up Above My Head” showed both of them to great advantage: Knight provided the response to Tharpe in traditional call and response format, then took the role that would have been assigned to a bass in a male quartet after Tharpe’s solo. They toured the gospel circuit for a number of years, during which Tharpe was so popular that she attracted 25,000 paying customers to her wedding to her manager Russell Morrison (her third marriage), followed by a vocal performance, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 1951.

Their popularity took a sudden downturn, however, when they recorded several blues songs in the early 1950s. Knight attempted afterwards to cross over to popular music, while Tharpe remained in the church, but rebuffed by many of her former fans. Retreating to Europe, Tharpe gradually returned to the gospel circuit, although at nowhere near her former celebrity. Her performances were curtailed even further by a stroke in 1970 after which she lost the use of her legs. She died in 1973 after another stroke, on the eve of a scheduled recording session. ---last.fm

download (mp3 @320 kbs):