15-08-2020 > BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 1965-1959

Howlin' Wolf

15-08-2020 BLUES:MiX # 33 blues(y) songs from the BLUES circle 1965-1959 # Howlin' Wolf, The Rolling Stones, Little Walter, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Reverend Gary Davis, Curtis Jones, Al Smith, Snooks Eaglin, Lonnie Donegan, Jack McDuff

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1965-1959

A primal, ferocious blues belter with a roster of classics rivaling anyone else, and a sandpaper growl of a voice that has been widely imitated. In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like the Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds in his salad days, the Wolf was the primal force of the music spun out to its ultimate conclusion. 
Howlin' Wolf 
Killing Floor  (Chester Burnett)
Tail Dragger (Willie Dixon)
The Natchez Burnin' (Chester Burnett)
from The Real Folk Blues 1965
In the mid-'60s, Chess Records released a great series of compilations of '40s and '50s singles by some of its best blues artists, all of them called The Real Folk Blues. The Howlin' Wolf entry is possibly the best of the batch, and one of the best introductions to this mercurial electric bluesman. Opening with the savage "Killing Floor," the album doesn't let up in intensity, and it happily focuses on Wolf's less-anthologized sides, which gives the album a freshness a lot of blues compilations lack... every track is pure Chicago blues at its finest...

The premier British rock band for over half a century, creators of the sound and style imitated by countless groups. By the time the Rolling Stones began calling themselves the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the late '60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the title.
The Rolling Stones
Confessin' the Blues  (Walter Brown / Jay McShann)
2120 South Michigan Avenue  (Mick Jagger / Nanker Phelge / Keith Richards)
from 12 x 5 1964
The evolution from blues to rock accelerated with the Rolling Stones' second American LP. They turned soul into guitar rock for the hits "It's All Over Now" and "Time Is on My Side" (the latter of which was their first American Top Ten single). "2120 South Michigan Avenue" is a great instrumental blues-rock jam; "Around and Around" is one of their best Chuck Berry covers; and "If You Need Me" reflects an increasing contemporary soul influence...

A major figure of post-war blues, brought the harmonica out of its rural setting into an urban context.
Little Walter
It Ain't Right (Little Walter)
Crazy Mixed Up World (Willie Dixon / Bruce Willis)
Confessin' the Blues (Walter Brown / Jay McShann)
from Confessin' the Blues 1953-1963 (1966)
...Still, for those who can't afford either of those pricey sets, this disc, coupled with the two best-of volumes, and the other Walter compilations, fills in some holes that are well worth filling. Made up of songs cut between 1953 and 1959 -- none of which had ever appeared on LP before the original 1974 release of this collection -- the selection features Walter in his prime, playing alongside Robert Lockwood, Jr. and Louis Myers or Luther Tucker on guitar (with Muddy Waters present on slide on one indispensable track, "Rock Bottom"), mostly Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on the drums, with Lafayette Leake or Otis Spann on piano...

Influential but criminally overlooked Delta blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter.
Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
Mean Old Frisco (Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup)
That's Alright (Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup)
Too Much Competition (Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup)
from Mean Ol' Frisco 1962
Arthur Crudup may well have been Elvis Presley's favorite bluesman. The swivel-hipped rock god recorded no less than three of "Big Boy's" Victor classics during his seminal rockabilly heyday: "That's All Right Mama" (Elvis' Sun debut in 1954), "So Glad You're Mine," and "My Baby Left Me." Often lost in all the hubbub surrounding Presley's classic covers are Crudup's own contributions to the blues lexicon. He didn't sound much like anyone else, and that makes him an innovator... Around 1940, Crudup migrated to Chicago from Mississippi. Times were tough at first; he was playing for spare change on the streets and living in a packing crate underneath an elevated train track when powerful RCA/Bluebird producer Lester Melrose dropped a few coins in Crudup's hat. Melrose hired Crudup to play a party that 1941 night at Tampa Red's house attended by the cream of Melrose's stable: Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson, Lil Green. A decidedly tough crowd to impress -- but Crudup overcame his nervousness with flying colors. By September of 1941, he was himself an RCA artist.

One of the most influential bluesmen in terms of the evolution of folk and rock fingerpicking. In his prime of life, which is to say the late '20s, the Reverend Gary Davis was one of the two most renowned practitioners of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar; 35 years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands of people at a time, and an inspiration to dozens of modern guitarist/singers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Donovan; and Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder, who studied with Davis.
Reverend Gary Davis
You Got to Move
Motherless Children (Traditional)
A Little More Faith
from A Little More Faith 1961
Gary Davis' second album for Prestige Records is a confusing affair, at least as far as its title -- Little More Faith is how it's listed in lots of reference sources, but its front cover calls it A Little More Faith, while its spine (at least for the CD issue) calls it Have a Little Faith. But by whatever name it's called, it's a masterpiece: its dozen songs recorded on one day in August of 1961 are nothing less than priceless. Davis presents an easy virtuosity on his solo guitar, and runs his voice across a surprisingly wide range in what is mostly gospel repertory. Not that any blues fans will mind his approach: Davis was one of those figures where the sound and feel of blues becomes indistinguishable from those of gospel...

Curtis Jones (August 18, 1906 – September 11, 1971) was an American blues pianist... Jones's first full-length album appeared in 1960 on Bluesville, by which time he had become a noted performer on the Chicago folk music scene. A solo album was released in 1962, by which time Jones had moved to Europe. He lived there and in Morocco for the rest of his life.[3] He made further albums in the UK, including one in 1968 that featured Alexis Korner on guitar.
Curtis Jones
Lonesome Bedroom Blues (Curtis Jones)
Suicide Blues
Trouble Blues (Ozzie Cadena / Curtis Jones)
Fool Blues
from Trouble Blues 1960
The taciturn pianist in the company of a fine New York rhythm section and Johnny "Big Moose" Walker (but on guitar, not piano) made for a winning combination on this 1960 album...

Albert B. Smith was born in Bolivar County, Mississippi, on November 23, 1923. His family moved to Pace, Mississippi, in 1927. He danced with a jug band on the streets of Rosedale, Mississippi, when he was 7. He learned how to play the string bass in a school band after hearing Big Joe Williams and other Delta bluesmen at his mother's barrelhouse...
Al Smith
Night Time Is The Right Time
I've Got A Girl
Tears in My Eyes
from Hear My Blues 1959
As a rule, people who appreciate the late Jimmy Witherspoon have a very favorable reaction to Al Smith -- that is, if they get a chance to hear him. Neither of the two albums that Smith provided for Bluesville (Hear My Blues in 1959 and Midnight Special in 1960) are well-known. While Witherspoon was a big name in the blues world, Smith was a gospel singer who dabbled in secular music. But when Smith did venture outside the gospel realm, his approach was quite comparable to Witherspoon's -- like Witherspoon, he favored a jazz-influenced approach to blues and R&B...

When they referred to consistently amazing guitarist Snooks Eaglin as a human jukebox in his New Orleans hometown, they weren't dissing him in the slightest. The blind Eaglin was a beloved figure in the Crescent City, not only for his gritty, Ray Charles-inspired vocal delivery and wholly imaginative approach to the guitar, but for the seemingly infinite storehouse of oldies that he was liable to pull out on-stage at any second...
Snooks Eaglin
Looking for a Woman
Careless Love
Let Me Go Home, Whiskey
 Saint James Infirmary
from New Orleans Street Singer 1959
Folkways Records released New Orleans Street Singer in 1959 and the album set the world of folk and acoustic blues fans on fire. Snooks Eaglin was in the early stages of his long R&B career when folklorist Harry Oster heard him playing solo on the streets of the French Quarter...

The "King of Skiffle" was huge in pre-Beatles England and even managed a hit or two stateside.
Lonnie Donegan
The House of the Rising Sun
Talking Guitar Blues
from Skiffle Folk Music 1960
To look at Lonnie Donegan today, in pictures taken 40 years ago when he was topping the British charts and hitting the Top Ten in America, dressed in a suit, his hair cut short and strumming an acoustic guitar, he looks like a musical non-entity. But in 1954, before anyone (especially anybody in England) knew what rock & roll was, Donegan was cool, and his music was hot. He's relatively little remembered outside of England, but Donegan shares an important professional attribute with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Sex Pistols -- he invented a style of music, skiffle, that completely altered the pop culture landscape and the youth around him, and for a time, completely ruled popular music through that new form.

Author of one of the funkiest, most soulful, Hammond B-3 styles of all time, with rock-solid basslines and blues-drenched solos.
Jack McDuff
The Honeydripper (Joe Liggins)
Dink's Blues
Blues and Tonic
from The Honeydripper 1961
The remaster of Jack McDuff's hard swinging 1961 album The Honeydripper was overseen by Rudy Van Gelder himself... The date featured the big tenor Jimmy Forrest, drummer Ben Dixon, and Grant Green on guitar in his recording debut. Green not only held his own with McDuff on the title track, "Dink's Blues," and "Blues and Tonic," ... Green was always more than a sideman as this date attests, and though he was part of the rhythm section, his playing is a standout on this date. McDuff was already in full possession of his voice as an organist, and his hard bop leanings began to subside here as he embraced a more soulful approach, no doubt informed by the effect Jimmy Smith was having on jazz with his crossover. This is an excellent date and should be picked up by anyone interested in McDuff as a great place to start, or for any serious collector because of the gorgeous sound of the remaster itself.