ARTIST | SONG | ALBUM |
---|---|---|
Alex Moore | Across The Atlantic Ocean | The American Folk Blues Festival 1969 |
Speckled Red | Early Morning Blues | Blues Masters Vol. 11 |
Sonny Boy Williamson II | Keep It To Yourself | Live In Europe |
Lonnie Jonson | Another Night To Cry | The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 |
Lightnin' Hopkins | Ain't It A Pity | The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 |
Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes | I'm Going Home | The Harmonica Blues of ... |
Sippie Wallace | Woman Be Wise | Woman Be Wise |
Curtis Jones | You Don't Have To Go | Now Resident In Europe |
Eddie Boyd | I'm Coming Home | Five Long Years |
Memphis Slim | I Got The Blues Everywhere | Memphis Slim With Matthew Murphy |
T-Bone Walker & Muddy Waters | She Says She Loves Me | Blues Avalanche Live At Montreux |
Josh White | Like a Natural Man | From New York to London |
Big Bill Broonzy | Black, Brown & White | Big Bill Broonzy 1949-1951 |
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee | Climbin' On Top The Hill | Chris Barber Presents: Lost & Found Vol.1 |
Hubert Sumlin, Willie Dixon & Sunnyland Slim | Blues Anytime! | Blues Anytime! |
Magic Sam | Easy Baby | The American Folk Blues Festival 1969 |
Lightnin' Slim & Whispering Smith | Walking In The Park | American Blues Legends '73 |
Homesick James & Snooky Pryor | Dangerous Woman | Big Bear Sessions |
John Henry Barbee | I Ain't Gonna Pick No Cotton | Portraits in Blues Vol. 9 |
Big Joe Williams | Back Home Blues | Portraits in Blues Vol. 7 |
Son House | Death Letter | Delta Blues & Spirituals |
Muddy Waters | You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had | Blues & Gospel Train |
Show Notes:
Today’s program is the second of a three part feature on blues artists recorded in Europe spanning the late 40’s through the 70’s. Outside of Lonnie Johnson and Alberta Hunter, the blues hadn’t reached European shores prior to the 1940’s The late 40’s saw a few artists such as Leadbelly and Sammy Price hit Europe, with Price being the first to record. Josh White recorded the first guitar blues outside the U.S. But the biggest impact was Big Bill Broonzy’s arrival in 1951 and subsequent tours through 1957. By 1958 Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Muddy Waters had come to England. 1960 saw Jack Dupree, Memphis Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Little Brother Montgomery and Speckled Red appear in England. Dupree and Slim would both settle in Europe. Europe would become a haven for blues pianists with Curtis Jones, Eddie Boyd and Little Willie Littlefield all settling there. 1962 saw the inaugural American Folk Blues Festival which featured the absolute cream of the blues scene and toured almost annually until 1972. During the 70’s blues artists continued to tour Europe and there were package tours such as The American Blues Legends Tour which ran in 1973, 74, 75 and 79 and major concerts like the Montreux Jazz Festival which always had a blues component. Other artists also recorded in Europe like Blind John Davis, Professor Longhair, Lightnin’ Slim and Louisiana Red who settled in Germany.
Josh White had reached the zenith of his career when touring with Eleanor Roosevelt on a celebrated and triumphant Goodwill tour of Europe. He had been hosted by the continent’s prime ministers and royal families, and had just performed before 50,000 cheering fans at Stockholm’s soccer stadium. With work rapidly drying up in America, White relocated to London for much of 1950 to 1955, where he hosted his own BBC radio show, resumed his recording career, and gave concert tours throughout Europe and beyond. As Robert Freund Shwartz writes in How Britain Got The Blues: “White’s success in Britain encouraged a number of other prewar blues musicians to try their luck in Europe. Most, like Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, were affiliated with the folk music scene in the United States. Big Bill Broonzy was the exception. By 1950 he had quit the music profession; black audiences in the United States increasingly found his style old-fashioned in comparison to the raucous jump blues of Louis Jordan and the aggressive, rhythmic sounds coming out of Chicago and Memphis. Yet it was Broonzy who served as Britain’s ambassador of the blues, in equal parts sage, songster, teacher and touchstone to what was believed to be a fading tradition.” As for Lonnie, it’s probable that he was in London (and possibly elsewhere in Europe) roughly from the summer of 1917 until the summer or fall of 1919 with a musical review. In 1952 Johnson made an 11 month tour of England and returned to Europe in again in 1963 for the American Folk Blues Festival. Lonnie’s reception in Europe was mixed; his insistence on ballads and pop songs did not go over with blues audiences but when he stuck with blues his performances were well recieved.
Sonny Boy Williamson first traveled to Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival in 1963 and joined the festival again in 1964. Williamson stayed on after the tour trying to establish residency but it wasn’t to be. While over in Europe he recorded with the Yardbirds with the album released in the States in 1966. A quote often attributed to him about the experience was that “they wanted to play the blues very badly, and they did play them very badly.” Musician Tom McGuinness recalled that Sonny Boy “would turn round to the band, and say ‘this one’s in E’ and he would deliberately start playing in C, or anything but E. Then he’d stop the band and say to the audience, ‘you see, these white boys can’t play the blues!’” Sonny Boy also played with Manfred Mann and recorded with The Animals. As Sonny Boy said: “The kids over there loved me, They’d buy me things and treat me like God. Hah! They all wanted to play with me – paid good money too. They love the blues. And some of those cats are serious players. That’s right. A few of those English cats really surprised me. Damned if they didn’t. You might be hearing about some of them sons of bitches damn straight…”
In February 1964, Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records met Horst Lippmann who had come to Houston because his French promoter had said that he would not take on the American Folk Blues Festival again if he did not get Lightnin’ Hopkins to perform. As Strachwitz recalled: “Horst had heard that I was the only guy he should deal with,” Strachwitz says, “and apparently it helped that I was German. And when I got there, we met with Lightnin’, who said he wouldn’t fly to Europe if I didn’t go with him. So Horst said he’d pay for my whole trip, hotel and all, to tour with Lightnin’ in October. …Anyway, we got on this Air India plane. I think it was one of those back loading ones where you crawl in on the back, and I remember Lightnin’ and I were already sitting in our seats and the crew walks in. And Lightnin’ turns to me, ‘Chris, these people are going to fly this airplane?’ I said, ‘Ya, they’re good, you know.’ And it only dawned on me later on that he had never encountered these East Indians, except as ‘hoodoo’ people down in Louisiana.” When they finally landed in Frankfurt, Lightnin’ was a wreck: “He was just sickened. He couldn’t play. We called a doctor and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. And thank God, we had a whole week in Baden-Baden for the television program that Joachim Berendt had arranged for and had apparently paid for much of the whole tour. So they put him on the last day of the week. By that time, he sort of regained his ability to play. I think he had a nervous breakdown.” In 1964, with his brothers, he recorded a song about his time overseas called “Two Brothers Playing (Going Back To Baden-Baden).”
As we mentioned in part one, numerous pianists found Europe a a particularly hospitable place to work. Today we feature several who made there way overseas and a few who never went back. Today we feature sides by Alex Moore, Speckled Red, Eddie Boy and Curtis Jones. Moore, who’s song gives today’s show its title, began performing in the early ’20s, playing clubs and parties around his hometown of Dallas. In 1929, he recorded his first sessions and accompanied several artists including Perry Dixon, Blind Norris and Nick Nichols. Moore didn’t record again until 1937, when he made a few records for Decca. It was 1951 before Moore recorded again with RPM Records/Kent. Fortunately some sides from a session at Radio KLIF in Dallas in 1947 survived and have been issued by Arhoolie Records. Arhoolie Records recorded a self-titled album in 1960, and those subsequent recordings saw him obtain nationwide recognition. Throughout the 1960s, Moore played at clubs and festivals in America, as well as a small number of festivals across Europe. He toured with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1969, performing on the same bill as Earl Hooker and Magic Sam. The same year he recorded a session in Stuttgart, Germany, which led to the release of Alex Moore in Europe.
Speckled Red first got on record in 1929 recording three numbers of which the “The Dirty Dozens” was a big seller. A second recording session for Brunswick occurred in Chicago on 8 April 1930. Red was in Chicago for a brief time, in the late 1930s, where he recorded ten sides at the RCA studios in Illinois in 1938. Red owed his rediscovery to Charles O’Brien, a special officer with the St Louis Police Department, for during the 1950s this policeman and lover of blues and boogie-woogie music decided to trace some of the long-forgotten piano players in St Louis. Red eventually became the pianist at a club in the famous Gaslight Square, a noted St Louis jazz-club area. This was followed by a tour of Europe and Great Britain, in 1959, as part of a USA cultural programme. His recording career also took off once again with sessions for the Folkways, Delmark, Euphonic, Storyville and Tone labels.
Curtis Jones settled in Europe in the early 1960’s after almost twenty years without stepping into a studio, outside of a couple of 1953 sides for Parrot. Before packing his bags for Europe he waxed a pair of fine stateside comeback records; Trouble Blues (Bluesville, 1960) and Lonesome Bedroom Blues (Delmark, 1962). Over in Europe he would record two more superb albums; In London (Decca, 1963) and Now Resident In Europe (Blue Horizon, 1968).
Eddie Boyd found himself on the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival touring roster, and decided that perhaps his future lay in Europe. An appearance at the Hague Blues Festival (the first big blues concert ever to be organised in Holland) followed in the same year, and Boyd realized that not only was Europe relatively free of the racial discrimination it also promised to be the starting place for the blues revival, with ample recording opportunities. Switching residence from Paris to Belgium, he also found time to visit London and record an LP for Blue Horizon 1967 backed by Fleetwood Mac. In 1970, he married a Finnish girl and settled in Helsinki, continuing to gig regularly in Finland over the next two decades.
Many down-home bluesman found welcoming audiences in Europe such as Big Joe Williams, Lightnin’ Slim and partner Whispering Smith and John Henry Barbee. Big Joe toured with the AFBF in 1963, 1968 and 1972. He cut albums for Storyville in 1963 and twice for the label in 1972 in Copenhagen and cut an album in England in 1968.
In 1966, Lightnin’ Slim moved to Detroit to work in a car factory. But his reputation was very high among the European blues fans. So in 1972, Fred Reif who had found Slim in Detroit persuaded him to bring his Swamp blues overseas, alongside his old partner harmonica player Whispering Smith. Slim and Smith gave one of their most memorable concert on the venerable j1972 Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. In London the same year Slim cut the album London Gumbo. The duo also toured as part of the 1973 American Blues Ligands tour. There were plans for Slim to return and to tour extensively everywhere in Europe. But he died unexpectedly on 27 July 1974 in Detroit.
John Henry Barbee returned to the blues scene during the midst of the blues revival after making his last recordings in 1938.In 1964 he joined the American Folk Blues Festival. He was recorded several times in 1964: songs by him appear on a pair of albums on the Spivey label, several tracks were recorded while in Europe including an excellent full-length album for Storyville issued as Portraits in Blues Vol. 9.
Muddy Waters at the American Folk Blues & Gospel Caravan, Manchester, 1964 |
Among other big names featured today are fine tracks by T-Bone Walker, Son House and Muddy Waters. T-Bone First made it to Europe as part of the 1962 AFBF. A 1968 visit to Paris resulted in one of his best latter-day albums, I Want a Little Girl, for Black & Blue (and later issued stateside on Delmark). In Paris during November 1968, he recorded Good Feelin’ and Fly Walker Airlines released in 1973 and recorded at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival.
Son House had been to Europe during tbeforel but this time was different as Alan Balfour wrote in the notes: “He had been before, with the 1967 American Folk Blues Festival, but this occasion was more momentous as the headlines in the Melody Maker tried to impress on its readership: “Your last chance to see the Son. …The appearance of Son House in Britain that year was almost certainly the last time most would get to see an artist so important and so influential in the history of the blues. More to the point, for many, he was a bluesman from whom could be drawn a direct line – House-Robert Johnson-Muddy Waters-Elmore James and so on. Paul Oliver, writing in the Melody Maker at the time, reinforced this: ‘For the blues enthusiasts the living witness to the Mississippi tradition, he is virtually set apart from normal critical appraisal. Playing partner to Charlie Patton and Willie Brown, inspiration of Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, he is a key figure in the story of Delta blues with a timeless reputation’”.
We conclude the show with a riveting version of “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” by Waters recorded in 1964 as part of the American Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan. As Robert Freund Shwartz writes in How Britain Got The Blues: “The success of the American Folk Blues Festival motivated George Wein—the impresario behind the Newport Folk Festival—to launch the American Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan. In late April 1964 the package—which included Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Blind Gary Davis, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters and Otis Spann and Cousin Joe Pleasants—arrived in Britain for a 17-date tour. The venture was financially successful—the original 11 dates sold out so quickly that six more were added—and the reviews were overwhelmingly favorable.” A concert, in the rain, was recorded by Granada Television at the disused railway station at Wilbraham Road, Manchester in May 1964. The band performed on one platform while the audience members were seated on the opposite platform.
Related Articles/Video: –Blues Is My Business [AFBF 1963] by Victoria Spivey (Record Research no. 56, 1963) –Blues & Gospel Train (England, 1964) –Sippie Wallace: Woman Be Wise (Germany, 1966) –Lonnie Johnson: Another Night to Cry (American Folk Blues Festival, 1963) –Sonny Boy Williamson: Keep it to Yourself (American Folk Blues Festival, 1963)