Big Road Blues

This is our second installment of my rummage thought the amazing trove of field recordings George Mitchell recorded over a twenty year period. For more background make sure to read part one. As I mentioned in the first installment a good chunk of these recordings have been collected in the 7-CD George Mitchell Collection box set from Fat Possum. In the first part I covered the first three volumes and now take a look at the remaining ones.

Disc 4 is dominated by two giants, Fred McDowell and R.L. Burnside, recorded two days apart in the summer of 1967. McDowell had recorded prolifically by this point ever since Alan Lomax found him in 1959. Burnside, however, was unknown outside of his community. As Mitchell recalled: “We heard about R.L. from Othar Turner. See, Fred McDowell hadn’t mentioned R.L. – competition. Big-time competition. …The very first song he did was “Goin’ Down South.” You can imagine…I was completely taken aback. …’Goddamn this motherfucker’s good. I have found somebody.'” Four of those songs are included here which have all been reissued by Fat Possum as First Recordings and they remain among Burnside’s finest. What makes the McDowell session so special is his reunion with harmonica player Johnny Woods who McDowell hadn’t seen in eight years. The resulting off-the-cuff jam session is a spellbinding, intense affair as the duo pour it on with jaw dropping intensity on McDowell’s trademark “Shake Em’ On Down” and “Mama Says I’m Crazy.” All of these sides have been collected on Fat Possum’s Mama Says I’m Crazy. Three additional tracks with Woods taking the vocal appear on disc 3.

“Too many people went to Mississippi”, lamented Mitchell. Unlike many, Mitchell, didn’t confine his activities to that state, instead recording extensively in Georgia and Alabama. Mitchell uncovered the details of a rural sound in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley which encompasses the Chattahoochee River as it runs the southern border between Georgia and Alabama to the state line of Florida. Those who play in the style include: Cliff Scott, J.W. Warren, Jimmy Lee Harris, Precious Bryant, Albert Macon and Eddie Harris. Fat Possum’s Lower Chattahoochee Valley collects fifteen sides by various exponents of the style. The standout is Cliff Scott a wonderful bottleneck player who had a gently rolling style and a mellow, expressive vocal exemplified on songs like “Long Wavy Hair.” “Woke Up This Morning” has a strong delta feel, close to the style of Muddy’s plantation recordings. Jimmy Lee Harris, who worked with his brother Eddie Harris, played uncanny harmonica without a harmonica, a skill he learned in jail and was an expressive vocalist with a rhythmic style. Both men were recorded in the early 1980’s in Alabama. Eddie’s two numbers reveal a a fine electric guitarist with a down-home Jimmy Reed style. Mitchell also recorded the duo Albert Macon & Robert Thomas around the same time. The two had been playing together for some twenty years and their empathy is on display on the rollicking “Flat Foot Boogie” (“Play the strings out of it! Beat the blood out of it, now!”) as the two interweave their percussive guitars with remarkable skill and vitality. Precious Bryant has achieved a measure of success in recent years with a pair of national releases but the Mitchell recordings from 1969 were her first, cut when she was just twenty-seven. Her three numbers are utterly charming propelled by her propulsive, gently rolling guitar and husky, quite vocals. J.W. Warren was the last artist Mitchell recorded in the field and certainly a major talent. Warren had a gently driving guitar style, occasionally employing slide, and was a wonderful interpretor of traditional material as well as laying down intriguing originals like “Hoboing Into Hollywood.” A dozen of Warren’s sides have been issued on Fat Possum’s Life Ain’t Worth Livin’.

There’s several name artists on these volumes including Robert Nighthawk, Maxwell Street Jimmy, Jesse Mae Hemphill, John Henry Barbee, Furry Lewis, Will Shade and Charlie Burse. Nighthawk, of course, needs no introduction and Mitchell’s recordings capture him just months before he passed away. Although the booklet doesn’t say so, “Down By The Woodshed” is a previously unissued instrumental and two more unissued sides are available as digital download: “Down By The Wayside” and “Travelin’ Man Blues.” Mitchell was involved in a concert series at Chicago’s Fickle Pickle club where excellent recordings were made by under recorded figures like John Henry Barbee and Maxwell Street Jimmy. Not available on the box set but available as digital download, possibly from the Fickle Pickle series, are a half-a-dozen sides by James Brewer who’s long been a favorite. As far as I can tell these have not been issued before. As for the Memphis contingent, Furry Lewis is in exceptional form stretching out at length on “Good Morning Judge” and “Furry Lewis’ Careless Love.” Fat Possum’s Good Morning Judge contains ten tracks Mitchell recorded in 1962 and 1967. Will Shade’s sides are a bit rough around the edges although quite entertaining, especially his filthy version of “Dirty Dozens” where, as Mitchell notes, “he says it all” and the lively “K.C. Blues” with Burse on vocals. Like Precious Bryant, Jesse Mae Hemphill made her first side with Mitchell. She was only twenty-two when delivered a pair of absolutely captivating gospel numbers with minimal guitar backing.

Another notable female artist was Rosa Lee Hill who lived near Jesse Mae and was the daughter of Sid Hemphill. Mitchell devoted a chapter to Hill in his 1971 book Blow My Blues Away. Hill played compelling, hypnotic blues in the North Mississippi style and is captivating on stark numbers like “Bullying Well” and “Pork & Beans” (“Mama’s in the kitchen cookin’ pork and beans/Daddy’s on the ocean runnin’ submarines”). Two other artists featured in Mitchell’s book were Robert Diggs and Robert Johnson. Diggs was a marvelously expressive harp player delivering a lovely version of “Someday Baby”and a virtuoso harmonica workout on the instrumental “Racehorse Charleston.” Robert Johnson had given up the blues in 1927 for the church. Johnson’s powerful, bluesy moaning vocal is heard on four riveting numbers accompanied by his daughters. There’s some marvelous gospel on the final disc, a bonus CD by artists Fat Possum didn’t know enough about to include in the original 7″ set, by the Pettis Sisters who lay down a pair of rousing numbers making one wish they had been more extensively recorded. There’s no shortage of talent on this disc including fine sides by Willie Rockomo, Bruce Upshaw and George Hollis all of whom had some sides issued on the Revival label back in the 1970’s.

The days when you could go down south with a portable recorder and capture some unheralded blues genius is gone. These recordings are a rich, vibrant look at a vanished era. Historically and musically this is and incredible cache of recordings and I’m glad Fat Possum made these available. However, as I said in part one, I wish they had presented these in a more consistent, less scattershot manner. These recordings deserve better. You only have to look at how Dust-to-Digital handled the Art Rosenbaum field recordings to see how it should have been done.

Show Notes:

West Coast blues (California blues specifically) has never gotten anywhere near the attention of Chicago blues or say Delta blues, but has been home to many leading blues performers. While the West Coast still has a thriving blues scene the scene was in it’s heyday in the 1940’s and 50’s with most of the activity centering around the Los Angeles, Richmond, Oakland and San Francisco Bay areas. There’s not much of a prewar Californian blues tradition, which is likely due to the fact that the African-American communities weren’t very large in the beginning of the 20th century. The Black population swelled in the 1940s, due to large manpower needs to work in the U.S. defense industry during World War II. These new arrivals needed entertainment, of course, and the local jazz and blues club scene heated up quickly. There was a host of labels recording blues and R&B in Los Angeles in the 1940s including Specialty, Imperial, Aladdin, and the umbrella of labels run by the Bihari brothers RPM/Modern/Kent/Flair/Crown were the most notable. Bob Geddins was a key player who operated numerous small labels like Down Town, Big Town, Irma, and others. May of these sides were leased to larger outfits like Chess, Specialty, Modern and others.

The towering figure of West Coast blues was Texas born guitarist T-Bone Walker. Walker was a key figure in the electrification and urbanization of the blues, probably doing more to popularize the use of electric guitar in the form than anyone else. Much of his material had a distinct jazzy jump blues feel, an influence that would characterize much of the blues to emerge from California in the 1940s and 1950s. Among those who were influenced by Walker were B.B. King, Gatemouth Brown, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and West Coast guitar hero Lafayette Thomas who we profiled last year. Add that list Louisiana born Pete “Guitar” Lewis, Oklahoma born Jimmy Nolen, Chuck Norris, Pee Wee Crayton, Ulysses James and Goree Carter.

Among T-Bone’s legion of disciples was Houston’s Goree Carter, whose big break came when he signed to Houston’s Freedom Records circa 1949. For his gis first couple of side he was billed as “Little T-Bone.” Freedom issued plenty of Carter records over the next few years, and he later recorded for Imperial/Bayou, Sittin’ in With, Coral, Jade, and Modern without denting the national charts. Eventually, he left music behind altogether. Technically Carter isn’t a West Coast artist but I decided to lump him in as he’s certainly a T-Bone disciple and I was looking for an excuse to feature his music.

Although he was certainly influenced by T-Bone Walker , Pee Wee Crayton brought enough innovation to his playing to avoid being labeled as a mere T-Bone imitator. Crayton’s recorded output for Modern, Imperial, and Vee-Jay contains plenty of dazzling guitar work, especially on stunning instrumentals such as “Texas Hop,” “Pee Wee’s Boogie,” and “Poppa Stoppa,” all far more aggressive performances than Walker usually indulged in. Crayton was from Texas but relocated to Los Angeles in 1935. He signed with the L.A.-based Modern label in 1948, quickly hitting with “Blues After Hours” which topped the R&B charts in late 1948. He also hit with “Texas Hop” shortly thereafter, followed the next year by “I Love You So.” After recording prolifically at Modern to no further commercial avail, Crayton moved on to Aladdin and, in 1954, Imperial. After Imperial Crayton tried to regain his momentum at Vee-Jay in Chicago. After one-off 45s for Jamie, Guyden, and Smash during the early ’60s, Crayton largely faded from view until Vanguard unleashed his LP, “Things I Used to Do”, in 1971. After that, Pee Wee Crayton’s profile was raised somewhat; he toured and made a few more albums prior to his passing in 1985.

Jimmy Nolen took up guitar after hearing T-Bone Walker on the radio at the age of 14 in 1948. He was soon proficient enough on his instrument to get his first electric guitar and join J.D. Nicholson & His Jivin’ Five, receiving his first exposure to a recording studio in 1952. In 1955, Jimmy Wilson heard Jimmy playing at a club in Tulsa and hired him to go on the road with him and his band. When Wilson’s band broke up in Los Angeles and Nolen decided to stay. He played a short time with trumpeter Monte Easter’s band recording with him for Aladdin and singing on “Blues In The Evening.” Possibly on recommendation from Easter or Wilson, Nolen began recording for J.R. Fullbright’s Elko label in 1954 providing support for Ray Agee, J.D. Nicholson and Jimmy Wilson. In 1954 he joined Chuck Higgins band and was featured prominently on several recordings for the Dootone label. It was during this time that he contracted with Federal Records, a subsidiary of the King label and recorded his first sides under his own name. using a number of Higgins band members and other LA session men. In addition to his fine guitar work he proved himself an able singer on terrific sides such as “Wipe Your Tears”, “How Fine Can You Be” an intense version of Tampa Red’s “It Hurts Me Too” and instrumentals like “After Hours” and “Strollin’ With Nolen.” Jimmy replaced the ailing Pete “Guitar” Lewis in the Johnny Otis Band around 1957 and became very busy as a recording session guitarist, resulting in Otis’s big hit, “Willie And The Hand Jive” and other Capitol successes such as “Ma, He’s Making Eyes At Me” and “In The Dark.” Striking out on his own in 1960, he formed his own band and was sought after by many of the major blues stars that came into L.A. for backing when they were without their own bands. B.B. King and T-Bone Walker would always use Jimmy and his band when they were in town without their sidemen. Jimmy played throughout California and Arizona working steadily until he decided to accept James Brown’s offer to join his band in 1965. His patented funky chicken scratch style can be heard on hits like “Papa’ Got A Brand New Bag” and many more hits between 1965 to 1983, except for the two years he left the band to go with Brown sidemen, Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley as “All the Kings Men”. He was with the band in Atlanta, GA when he suffered a fatal heart attack on December 16, 1983 at the age of 48.

One of the hottest guitarists working on the coast during the 40s and 50s was Carl Pete Lewis. He was discovered by Johnny Otis in 1948 who signed him on the spot after he won a talent contest at his Barrelhouse Club at the Thursday Night Talent Hour. Otis quickly spotlighted his new discovery on the guitar workout “Midnight In The Barrelhouse” issued on Excelsior in 1948 selling well enough to be picked up by Savoy and cut a similarly themed “Thursday Night Blues” for Modern. Lewis went on to be a permanent member of Otis’ band and is featured on most of Otis’ sides for Modern, Savoy, Mercury, Peacock and Aladdin. Lewis also cut a batch of fine solo sides for Federal and Peacock which also showcased his considerable singing and harmonica abilities. Among the notable numbers from this period include “Louisiana Hop”, “Raggedy Blues”, “Goofy Dust Blues” and “Chocolate Pork Chop Man.” For Peacock he backed Johnny Ace (most notably “Pledging My Love”), Big Mama Thornton (most notably “Hound Dog”) plus others. Lewis stuck with Otis throughout the 50’s cutting some sides for Otis’ Dig label during this period. He was eventually replaced by Jimmy Nolen in 1957. Lewis went on to play with George “Harmonica” Smith with whom he recorded for Sotoplay. He died of alcohol related problems in the early 60’s.

Chuck Norris worked in Chicago until the mid-’40s, when he moved out to the West Coast. He soon became one of the most-called musicians in Hollywood. He did sessions on his own between 1947-1953, including singles for Coast, Imperial, Mercury, Aladdin, Selective and Atlantic. Some of the guitarist’s best playing was on records by artists such as Percy Mayfield, Roy Hawkins and Floyd Dixon. Norris had a live record released in 1980 on the European Route 66 label.

Not only was Roy Hawkins dogged by bad luck during his career (at the height of his popularity, the pianist lost the use of an arm in a car wreck), he couldn’t even cash in after the fact. When B.B. King hit the charts in 1970 with Roy Hawkins’s classic “The Thrill Is Gone,” the tune was mistakenly credited to the wrong composers on early pressings. Little is known of Hawkins’s early days. Producer Bob Geddins discovered Hawkins playing in an Oakland, CA nightspot and supervised his first 78s for Cavatone and Downtown in 1948. Modern Records picked up the rights to several Downtown masters before signing Hawkins to a contract in 1949. Two major R&B hits resulted: 1950’s “Why Do Things Happen to Me” and “The Thrill Is Gone” the following year. Hawkins recorded for the Modern and RPM imprints into 1954. After that, a handful of 45s for Rhythm and Kent were all that was heard of the Bay Area pianist. He employed some of the best West Coast guitarist of the period; Oscar Moore, Ulysses James, Chuck Norris, Lafayette Thomas all appeared on his records. He’s rumored to have died in 1973.

A couple of interesting items from the New York Times in the past couple of days:

After Years of Neglect, Rebirth for a Blues Singer’s House

She danced the black bottom, doled out world-weary advice and claimed to be ready with a butcher knife if she caught her lover straying. She was a whiskey-slugging contralto with raunchy songs, a sound business sense and bisexual tastes. So a visitor to the newly opened home of Gertrude Rainey, who as Ma Rainey was the embodiment of the “big mama” blues singers of the 1920s, might be a tad disappointed to find nothing more titillating than painstakingly restored bedroom furniture and prim period wallpaper. “She had kind of calmed down by the time she moved back here,” said Fred C. Fussell, the curator of the Ma Rainey House, which opened four months ago as a small museum in this city on the Chattahoochee River. “She wasn’t living that kind of life.” Besides, said Mr. Fussell and Florene Dawkins, the chairwoman of the Friends of Ma Rainey, what is remarkable is not so much what the Ma Rainey House has on display (in fairness, there are also photos, minstrel show memorabilia, original recordings and theater invoices) but that the house is still standing.

The next item doesn’t have any blues content but it’s fascinating none the less.

Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison

For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words “Mary had a little lamb” on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison’s invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades. The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

The thought of “lost” blues recordings always gets me worked up even though I usually get disappointed with the final result. Such is the case with Chris Barber’s The Blues Legacy Series: Lost & Found, a three volume series touting unreleased live recordings of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Jimmy Witherspoon, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Champion Jack Dupree and Louis Jordan. According to the liner notes: “The formation of the ‘Lost & Found’ Series came into being; when the Jazz & Blues legend Chris Barber came across some old 1/4 inch magnetic tape. On these, he discovered the unique sounds of Sonny Boy Williamson in concert, recorded many decades ago, in England. Chris set about investigating his archives further, only to find more of these tapes…”

The bulk of the recordings were made between 1957-1964 at the very beginning of the blues boom that swept across Europe. I was always under the impression that interest in blues really took off in Europe with the inception of the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962. I’m not sure what kind of blues audience there was in England in the late 1950’s; I don’t think labels like Chess were easy to come by back then and it wasn’t until 1960 that Paul Oliver published his pioneering Blues Fell This Morning. Certainly the audiences on these recordings are enthusiastic but I would certainly be interested in more information regarding the British blues scene of the period.

Firstly, just to make clear, the 1958 Muddy Waters recordings from the Manchester Free Trade Hall have been previously issued. These are Muddy’s earliest live recordings and his first tour of England. Vocally Muddy is in magnificent form, his vocals miked right up front, unfortunately his guitar is submerged in the mix. It’s also too bad that Muddy’s band didn’t make it over with him although thankfully Otis Spann did and his piano playing, although low in the mix, is a thing of beauty. Most of the program features just Muddy, Spann and Barber’s drummer Graham Burbridge which is just fine. More problematic is “Walking Thru The Park” featuring Barber’s band wailing along behind Muddy with their brand of traditional jazz, a jarring contrast that simply doesn’t work. Unfortunately this is emblematic of many of the recordings.

Like Muddy, Sister Rosetta Tharpe is in terrific vocal form and like Muddy she suffers from a guitar that’s virtually inaudible which is a real shame. Again Barber’s band and Tharpe’s vocals make for an incongruous mix on numbers like “Every Time I Feel The Spirit”, “Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air”, “Old Time Religion” where they virtually drown poor Rosetta out. Where’s Lucky Millinder when you need him? The latter number plus “When The Saints Go Marching in feature white vocalist Ottilie Patterson who, to be fair, is not a bad vocalist but comes across as a bit staid. Fortunately most of the Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee sides from their 1958 date at the Manchester Free Trade Hall feature just the duo who are in reliably fine form. Several other sides from the same year are from a BBC broadcast which liberally feature Barber’s band as well as Ottilie Patterson. To be honest the duo’s sides have never excited me all that much although in small doses they’re quite enjoyable. Similar issues plague the Sonny Boy Williamson performance from 1964. The band is present on just about all the tracks much to the detriment of Sonny Boy’s subtle, nuanced blues. I believe some of these sides have been issued before but I’m not sure if it was a legitimate release. Much better are his AFBF performances of the same year backed by Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin and Willie Dixon.

The Jimmy Witherspoon and Howlin’ Wolf sides fare much better. Witherspoon is in superb voice, delivering an aching, world weary version of “Have You Ever Loved A Woman” and his classic “Times Are Getting Tougher Than Tough” from a 1964 date that get fairly sympathetic backing. A 1980 set for Dutch Radio finds him in still superb form just prior to the cancer that would ravage his voice in his later years. Howlin’ Wolf alongside trusty guitarist Hubert Sumlin are simply electrifying on a torrid “Dust My Broom” and a dramatic, powerhouse version of “May I Have A Talk With You.” I have to admit that the riffing horns on “Howling For My Baby” are quite effective as Wolf storms through this one.

From a historical standpoint these are fascinating recordings but a mixed bag musically. Overall there’s enough good performances to recommend these, at least the second and third volumes, although all the artists involved have better live recordings on the market. One must also give Barber his due for taking a chance on these artists at a time when the blues was anything but a sure bet.