Category Archives: Blues

Peter Green, Lonnie Mack, Gatemouth Brown – Guitar! Guitar! Guitar!

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When we are children we spend much of our lives dreaming of the future. A future in which we will be fearless captains of storied lives. What wonders we will accomplish! Idly staring out of windows at home or at our school desks, seemingly in a daze, we lay out scenarios of heroic movies in which we are the writer, producer, director and multi Oscar winning star.

A lot of young men dreams swirl around images of themselves as the epitome of cool at the wheel of a gleaming, glamorous car (a Chevrolet Corvette or perhaps an E type Jaguar) which will make all their male friends envious and all the girls of their acquaintance, especially the girl of their dreams (there’s always a luminously lit girl in these dreams) stop, stare and ask – ‘Can I have a ride?’

Others disdain these petrol head reveries. Instead, their dreams see them on stage wowing the audience (and their fellow musicians) with the virtuosity of their six string genius. Doodling on their school notebooks they picture themselves strutting their soon to be recognised stuff elegantly armed with a Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster, a Gibson Flying V, Firebird or a 1959 Les Paul.

They just know that one day like Johnny B Goode their name will dazzle the night in neon lights as people come from miles around to hear them make that guitar ring, ring, ring like a bell.

Often these dreams vanish into the ether only to be recalled when the dust covered yearbook is once more brought into the light. But, but, there are always those who through determination, application and sheer willpower realise those dreams of childhood and as is the way of these things provide models for another generation of dreamers.

Today the Jukebox features three Guitar heroes who dreamed those dreams and who then burned those dreams into vinyl masterpieces in the 1950s and 1960s which continue to provide dreamscapes for aspiring axe-men to this day.

The Jukebox needle drops first on, ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’ a joyously swinging 1954 Peacock Records Rhythm & Blues gem by a guitarist, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, who defined Americana long before the term was invented. Gatemouth was from Orange Texas and man oh man could he cut a rug whether he was playing the blues, Zydeco, Rhythm & Blues or Country music! Like the man said he played American and World music – Texas style.

The version above was recorded at Radio City Music Hall in February 2003 and can be found on the highly recommended DVD, ‘Lightning In A Bottle’. The sharp eyed among you will recognise that behind the drums is the great Levon Helm from The Band.

Levon lays down a killer beat urging Gatemouth on as he magisterially wails through his signature tune. The fine horn section issues hot blast after hot blast lifting Gatemouth to ever greater instrumental heights on guitar.

The whole version puts me in mind of The Texas Special streamliner train as it flashed through the night on its way home to San Antonio. Gatemouth’s guitar style was full of fleet flair but never needlessly flashy. His sweetly stinging solos are those of a professional going enjoyably about his business with dexterous skill.

I’m delighted that I met Gatemouth at London’s 100 Club in the mid 1970s on one of his frequent European tours. He was quite a sight to see in his trademark black outfit featuring a feathered hat, pointed cowboy boots and studded Western shirt. To top it off when not on stage he smoked a pipe!

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With the enthusiasm of youth I waylaid him as he walked back to the stage for his second set and near begged him to play, ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’. To my eternal delight two minutes later he announced, ‘Here’s one Tom over there says I just have to play’ before launching into a blistering take on Okie Dokie. What a tune, what a musician, what a man!

While Gatemouth was laying down, ‘Okie Dokie Stomp’ in Houston in the heartland of unfashionable rural Indiana a young man born to play guitar, Lonnie Mack, was practicing obsessively while absorbing and incorporating influences from rock n roll, rockabilly, the blues and crucially gospel music.

On the family farm while there was no electricity there was a battery powered radio – usually tuned to The Grand Ol’ Opry. Keen eared Lonnie could hear that Merle Travis was a great player and when his parents went to bed he could tune the radio into black stations and hear T Bone Walker and other bluesmen and dream of a style which would marry Merle and T Bone’s imaginative fluency while adding an intensity he had heard in Ray Charles and the Blind Boy gospel groups.

In 1958 Gibson issued the distinctive Flying V guitar and teenage Lonnie who had been working the Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio roadhouse circuit since he was 13 got himself the 7th Flying V off the production line. And, boy did he put that guitar through its paces!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1isW4s7rWpc

Wow! I think that bears repeating, Wow! And that was what practically every guitar player who heard, ‘Wham’ in 1963 said as they played the record over and over again trying to figure out how a chubby kid from the sticks could come up with such a sound that seemed to be savagely wild while being perfectly contained and controlled. With wonder most realised that if it came to a musical, ‘cutting contest’ there could only be one winner – Lonnie Mack.

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Lonnie Mack’s guitar playing here and throughout his stunningly brilliant 1964 LP, ‘The Wham Of That Memphis Man’, recorded for Fraternity Records in Cincinnati, has the overwhelming onrushing power of a field shredding tornado as it cuts a swathe through your brain cells while you desperately try to keep up with his prodigious invention.

Soon, guitar vibrato bars were popularly called Whammy Bars in tribute to the astounding sounds Lonnie coaxed and commanded from his own Bigsby vibrato tailpiece.

Lonnie’s admiration of Gospel music is reflected in the intensity of his performances and the way he thrillingly builds and releases tension to hold and lift both his audience and his fellow musicians. Using techniques borrowed from the blues, bluegrass and gospel Lonnie can fit blindingly fast licks and choruses into a finely judged musical structure and still shift into overdrive to guide a tune to its breathless conclusion. Once heard I’m telling you that you will not be able to get enough of the wham of Lonnie Mack.

While these American giants were scorching their groove into guitar history a generation of fanatical young Englishmen swore undying devotion to the Blues and dreamed that they too might capture and discharge lightning in their playing just like Elmore James, B B King or Buddy Guy.

The mentor and bandleader for many of these guitar tyros was one of the key figures in British Blues history, John Mayall. From 1963 onwards he led a series of bands called, ‘The Bluesbreakers’ who became an amalgam of finishing school and military academy for would be bluesmen – especially guitar players.

As most will know Mayall’s first great guitar slinger was none other than Eric Clapton who showed on the 1966 LP, ‘Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton’ that Britain had produced its first guitar player who could genuinely be considered to be on the level of the Chicago scene masters.

So it was genuinely shocking for producer Mike Vernon to learn as he set up the studio in 1967 to record Mayall’s LP, ‘A Hard Road’ that Eric had left the band. It was even more shocking to be told by John Mayall not to worry about that as the new lead guitarist, Peter Green, was even better than Eric! How could that be?

Well, heretical though it may be in many critical circles, I agree with John Mayall’s 1967 bravado. To my mind in the three years or so from 1967 to 1970 before his musical genius was effectively crippled by over indulgence in drugs, LSD especially, and mental instability, Peter Green was the most brilliant and extraordinarily affecting guitar player on the planet.

In later posts I will write about his career at some length. Today I will limit myself to some general observations about his sound and present in illustration his wondrous performance on, ‘The Supernatural’ from the, ‘Hard Road’ LP. Here, Peter Green and his, ‘Magic’ 1959 Les Paul will take you to places few guitar players can even imagine let alone reach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWFFqffopb8

Perhaps the simplest way to comment on that incredible performance would be just to quote someone, B B King, who knew a little bit about guitar playing – ‘He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats’. Amen, B B, Amen!

‘The Supernatural’ was the first recorded evidence that Peter Green had a very special quality as a musician: he had a feeling for the shivering essence of music. The critic Greil Marcus talks about the, ‘Yargh’ when trying to pinpoint the veil piercing quality of Van Morrison’s voice.

I think we could use the term, ‘The Touch’ to identify the same quality found in the voice of Peter Green’s guitar. Through an inspired use of vibrato, sustain and controlled harmonic feedback he conjures up soundscapes that open up such deep interior realms of feeling that listening to him can be a deeply emotional experience.

I have always thought that Peter Green and his Les Paul worked together like two brave but vulnerable living creatures voyaging into terra incognita when he took his guitar solos. It’s the mixture of musical daring with emotional vulnerability and depth that distinguishes Peter Green for me from all his contemporaries.

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Peter Green in his searching songs and performance seems to offer reports back from dark reaches within himself and I suspect all of us. In his playing we can come to recognise both the embracing warmth of those sub conscious depths and perhaps also their chill threat. The timber of humanity is always twisted and knotted and Peter Green’s guitar brilliantly illuminates that truth.

A great writer, Franz Kafka, once gave his view on what the function of a book should be and I think it holds up just as well for music:

‘ I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? … Good Lord, …. we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone …. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us’.

Listening to Peter Green I feel that the axe has indeed split the frozen sea.

Notes:

Gatemouth Brown died at 81 in September 2005 in his childhood home town of Orange Texas having just escaped the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. In a macabre twist his coffin was floated away from his burial site by flooding caused by Hurricane Ike in September 2008. Happily, he was later reinterred securely in Orange’s Hollywood Cemetery where his resting place is properly marked by a fine headstone and a plaque from the Texas Historical Commission.

Gatemouth made many fine recordings. I recommend the original albums:

1975 Bogalusa Boogie Man (Barclay)
1979 Makin’ Music (with Roy Clark) (One Way)
1981 Alright Again! (Rounder)
1982 One More Mile (Rounder)
1999 American Music, Texas Style (Verve/Blue Thumb)
2001 Back to Bogalusa (Verve/Gitanes)

For compilations:

1987 Texas Swing (Rounder) Rounder recordings
1990 The Original Peacock Recordings (Rounder) Peacock recordings

Lonnie Mack:

‘The Wham Of That Memphis Man’ should be in every collection – if you haven’t got it order it today!

In addition to his staggering guitar playing Lonnie is also a wonderfully intense singer who brings a gospel grace and intensity to his country soul vocals. The combined qualities are well captured on his Elektra albums, ‘Glad I’m In The Band’ and, ‘Whatever’s Right’ from 1969. His live, rampaging roadhouse blues sound is showcased on, ‘Live At Coco’s.

Two albums on Alligator Records from 1984 and 1986 are also well worth investigating, ‘Strike Like Lightning’ (extensively featuring Stevie Ray Vaughan) and, ‘Second Sight’.

Peter Green:

Everything Peter recorded with John Mayall and with Fleetwood Mac should be a mandatory purchase!

Elvis listened closely yet the world barely knows him : Junior Parker!

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Given the machinations of the music business, the powerful currents of cultural and social history and the mysteries of public taste it is entirely possible to be a magnificent singer, to have written and recorded some classic songs covered by giants such as Elvis Presley and to have made wonderful records at every stage of a two decade career (‘Mystery Train’, ‘Next Time You See Me’, ‘Feelin’ Good’, ‘Driving Wheel’) and yet remain a shadowy figure usually referred to only with regard to figures of more popular note.

My Lords, ladies and gentlemen and music lovers everywhere I give you an artist you’ve been longing for – if only you had known he was there – Junior Parker!

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Born in 1927 and growing up in West Memphis, Arkansas in the 1930s and 1940s Junior Parker was exposed to a thriving Blues and Rhythm and Blues scene. He learned to play the harmonica at the feet of Rice Miller (the second Sonny Boy Williamson) and in his teenage years he befriended and played with Johnny Ace, Roscoe Gordon, B B King and the mighty Howling Wolf. He also hooked up with bandleader/talent spotter/musical fixer Ike Turner who got him his initial shot at recording with Modern Records in 1952.

However, as with so many artists, it was after he met one of the most significant figures in twentieth century cultural history, Sam Phillips, and recorded at his Memphis Sun Studios that Junior Parker’s extraordinary talent as a singer, writer and performer first blossomed. Sun 187, ‘Feelin’ Good’ issued in 1953 and a sizeable R&B hit is Junior’s calling card showcasing his brilliantly controlled vocal style which combines supple variety with graceful flow.

 

Backed by guitarists Floyd Murphy and Pat Hare, pianist Bill Johnson and John Bowers on drums Junior takes a John Lee Hooker template and fashions (no doubt with the aid of the sharp eared Sam Phillips behind the desk) a record that pulses with energy and life. The hard wood floor sprung rhythm and the heart lifting guitar lines seem to clear a path for Junior to demonstrate the virtuosity of his singing.

He seems to gloriously glide and pirouette through the song ; now almost whispering hoarsely, now soaring into full throated release, all the while driving the song forward. Every time I hear this record I’m impelled to echo Junior, ‘Well I feel so good – Woooooooh!

Junior brought a song of his own, ‘Mystery Train’ to his next Sun session – one that would go on to be an epochal classic when covered by Sam Phillips’ greatest discovery, Elvis Presley. Junior’s version evokes an almost eerie atmosphere of a train slowly pulling its way in sultry heat through hazy southern fields.

Elvis, Scotty Moore and Bill Black (taking their cue from the urgent, ‘Love My Baby’ the flip side of Junior’s Mystery Train) up the tempo and energy level to evoke a streamlined locomotive blurring past astonished bystanders. Elvis sings with bravura élan and on the spot brings to life the sound of Rock ‘n’ Roll that Sam Phillips had so fervently been searching for. Junior’s version can’t match Elvis though it’s fair to say no one on earth has ever managed to either!

As Sam Phillips, for obvious reasons, concentrated on promoting the careers of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, Junior found a home from home at Don Robey’s Duke Records, Memphis’ premier black music label. During his time with Duke Junior made a string of excellent records while relentlessly touring on the, ‘Chitlin’ Circuit’ for the black communities throughout the nation.

Junior benefitted in these live shows from a fine band that had attack and colour through a well drilled rhythm team and a punchy brass section. This combination is shown to advantage on the wonderful, ‘Next Time You See Me’ from 1957. This one made the Hot 100 at 74 as well as top 5 R&B.

Essentially a blues shuffle, ‘Next Time’ establishes itself as an irresistible standard from the first few notes. You are swept along by the exhilarating licks and riffs traded between the brass section, the guitar and the piano.

Junior’s vocal has regal command as he tells the old, old story’s folk wisdom – ‘If it hurts you my darling – you only have yourself to blame.’ Junior never seems to strain for effect: his thoroughbred vocals have power in reserve allowing him to cruise through the song while effortlessly stirring the audience.

My next two selections illustrate Junior’s versatility and ability to inhabit the heart of a song to illuminate its overt and hidden dramas. For, ‘I Need Love So Bad’ he draws on the song writing pen of Percy Mayfield, the peerless poet and professor of the blues, and produces a performance that glows with passion.

I’m awestruck by Junior’s vocal here. Listen to the way he wraps his voice round Percy’s melody and lyric in a tender loving embrace. The song is one of those 3am in the locked bar blues expertly anatomising the never plumbed depths of male despair and angst (not to mention self-pity!). Junior manages to sing in a manner that suggests a man who is exhausted and world weary though not, yet, wholly defeated. It’s a wondrous performance that slays me no matter how often I hear it.

Contrast that performance with the almost Sam Cooke like elegance (there is no higher praise for a singer) that he brings to, ‘Someone Somewhere’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjGY6j4NqCg

Junior, here, shows what a great soul singer he would have been if he’d followed that path. While the horns mistily wreathe around him and the guitar glistens Junior’s vocal traces beautifully delicate emotional patterns that linger in the mind long after the record has ended.

Perhaps one of the hallmarks of a great singer is the way their voices enter and find a home in our hearts; imprinting themselves on our consciousness ever more deeply as we replay their songs on our turntables or in our waking and dreaming imaginations. Junior Parker belongs in that hallowed company as a singer.

I’ll close with Junior showing how he could take a hoary blues standard and reveal new depths. Eddie Boyd’s, ‘Five Long Years’ has had hundreds of covers but I doubt any have had the deeply affecting power of Junior’s version below recorded soon before his death.

I would call that chamber music blues – relaxed, intimate, exquisitely paced, deeply felt. Though Junior’s vocal seems wholly natural and spontaneous it conceals the craft of an absolute master.

Junior Parker was a great singer who, without grandstanding, artfully achieved total control of his instrument – his glorious voice. Though his life was cut short his legacy will be long lasting. Do yourself a favour and investigate his catalogue. Trust me you will not regret it.

Further Listening:

Junior Parker’s recorded legacy is desperately in need of an expertly curated box set. In the meantime look out for compilations of his Sun material and 2 MCA compilation of his Duke sides. Hard to find but wonderful to listen to are the, ‘Lion in winter’ recordings he made in 1970/1971 for Groove Merchant and United Artists.

Chris Smither – Killing The Blues on Desolation Row

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‘Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail,
Bouncing over a white cloud – killing the blues’. (Roly Salley)

‘I been left for dead before – but I still fight on
Don’t wait up – Leave the light on, I’ll be home soon’. (Chris Smither)

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In the late 1950s and early 1960s groups of earnest, intense young men in the great academic institutions of America began to develop what can only be called an obsession with Afro-American blues music which had been recorded in the pre war period.

Names like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James began to take on a hallowed and mythical status.

As they endlessly played the few records they could find of these mystery figures from the 1920s and 1930s (to the despair of their room and dorm mates) they wondered: could it be that some 30 or more years after these wondrous sides had been made that these legendary musicians might still be alive and just waiting to be discovered by enterprising young blues scholars?

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Scouring record sleeves and song lyrics for clues it occurred to Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins that Mississippi John Hurt’s, ‘Avalon Blues’ from his epochal 1928 sessions must surely refer to Avalon Mississippi.

Maybe Mississippi John was still living there!

Entirely oblivious to the esteem he was held in by highly educated white men young enough to be his grandsons.

And, miraculously John Hurt was still living in Avalon and though he had long left the life of a professional musician behind he was delighted to be, ‘Re- Discovered’ and given the chance to bring, ‘Frankie’ and, ‘Candyman’ to life again in coffee houses, the gleaming halls of Harvard and festival stages where the riveting gentleness of his songs, his guitar playing, his vocals and his personality won him tens of thousands of devout new admirers.

An LP of his 1963 Newport performance was issued and this record along with others like Lightning Hopkins, ‘Blues In The Bottle’ became sacred texts for aspiring white bluesmen who practiced the guitar stylings until their fingers bled.

Some of these blues apprentices were able to produce note for note recreations of their heroes great works. However, it soon became clear to the acute among them that just being able to play all the right notes in the right order at the right tempo did not make you a Bluesman.

No, really being able to play the Blues called for a cultural immersion, a sacramental devotion; a process of virtually religious formation that was beyond the desire, the will and the capability of almost all those who imagined that they could walk the walk, talk the talk and play the guitar like those old men had done and it seemed in many cases could still do.

However, there are always exceptions to every rule and always some acolytes who indeed have heard a true call, who have a vocation they are willing and eager to commit themselves to no matter how difficult the path.

The artist celebrated on The Jukebox today, Chris Smither, over a 45 year long career has proved that the call he heard as a teenager in New Orleans was indeed inviting him into a new baptism as an authentic musician who can play the blues or any blues related music with complete authority.

Here he is with his take on Mississippi John’s ‘Frankie and Albert’. The visuals of this live version are shaky but the sound is fine.

It’s charming that Chris starts this virtuoso performance by parodying the stumbling steps of a novice setting out to follow the footsteps of a master.

As you listen it’s clear that Chris Smither has now attained master status himself as he marries thumb, fingers and stamping foot to attain and maintain a grove, the Groove, which will win and hold the attention of the audience as the eternal tale of faithless love and its terrible consequences unwinds.

Chris Smither’s first instrument was the Ukelele and perhaps that goes some way to explain his fleet fingers and fluid touch as he plays the guitar. Add in his bedrock bass lines provided by a calloused thumb and the accents provided by his Italian loafers (thin soled, heavy heeled) stomping on a wooden board and you have a one man orchestra!

As, ‘Frankie’ progresses I hear a Super Chief locomotive speeding through the waving prairies sending light and sound streaming into our eyes, our ears and our hearts.

Chris Smither a fine songwriter himself with a wry, laconic style has throughout his career taken songs from his contemporaries and illuminated their depths through the scrupulous attention he brings to their strengths and a commitment to finding his own key to the heart of a song in his guitar style, choice of tempo and vocal tone.

Listen to him here take on one of Bob Dylan’s most extravagant masterpieces, ‘Desolation Row’ and make it his own with this gorgeously sardonic, rheumy eyed version.

Desolation Row might be described as a tour d’horizon of the madness of America in the mid 1960s or a glimpse into the head full of ideas surging through Bob Dylan’s brain at the time (lots of room for overlap there!).

Chris Smither strips away the bravura of Bob’ s performance and sings the song like a long time resident on Desolation Row who knows Cinderella well, has suffered the nightsticks of the riot squad and is used to the sounds of the ambulances echoing in the night.

Chris Smither is a troubadour who lives his life on the road travelling light from town to town bringing a treasury of song in his knapsack.

He’s a great live performer because he is able to surrender himself to the songs he plays trusting that all the hours of living with the material and his instrument will allow him to just play and let the work flow.

Watching Chris Smither play amounts to a seminar in the psychological concept of flow. The emotional heart of the songs he plays are channeled and directed, released in all their vibrant energy to touch his audience.

Time seems to be suspended, speeded up or slowed down according to the demands of the song in hand. Meanwhile his hands, thumb and fingers go where they are meant to go, where they must go, without any seeming effort or glances in the mirror.

The sorrow, the joy, the wisdom and the rapture locked in great songs are released to bloom in our imaginations.

Below, you’ll find yourself holding your breath as Chris suspends time as he performs Peter Case’s wonderful song, ‘Cold Trail Blues’.

I love the way Chris begins the song at the slowest possible ambulant tempo. The whole songs proceeds like a dream like serenade where the everyday rules of time no longer apply.

The guitar lines and the vocal seems to be like smoke drifting into the sky towards a bright but cold and distant moon. The very act of playing the song seems to be a demonstration of that hope against hope that all hope is not lost.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the chances of love and a life worth living again have not been absolutely left too far, too far behind.

Chris Smither has had his struggles with life. For much of the 1970s he was mired in alcoholism and is thus no stranger to the physical and emotional ditches by the side of the broad highway of life.

Returning, chastened, to that highway he has written songs imbued with hard won, though never bitter wisdom. Many of his songs are honest, measured reports from the emotional battlefields we all visit from time to time.

In, ‘Leave The Light On’ he hymns the lure of home as only a man who has spent half his lifetime absent from home can.

The song offers reassurance that we can learn from the defeats and the self inflicted wounds of this bruising life and find a kind of blessed peace if we pay attention.

Perhaps this last song, Roly Salley’s ‘Killing The Blues’ most aptly demonstrates Chris Smither’s ability to play a song in its platonic perfection.

This is surely one of those songs handed to its writer directly from the heavenly home of the songwriting muse. How else to explain a song so immediately a truthful discovery as well as a reminder of a truth we have all always known.

There have been many fine version of this song song but none anywhere near Chris Smither here. The song in this performance flows sweetly and surely like an an ancient river to the endlessly welcoming sea.

Chris Smither casts spells and enchants us. One of the great tasks of a musician using rhythm, melody and line is to take us out of our everyday world and take us to a place, a still space, where we can realign our hearts and minds and find again our true direction. That’s a task Chris Smither has carried out with devotion and distinction.

Finally to show the measure of Chris Smither’s vocation as a musician here’s his answer to the question, ‘Do you remember learning (Mississippi John Hurt’s) Candyman?

‘I’m still learning it!’

Recommended Recordings:

There are enormous pleasures contained in every record Chris Smither has ever made. My personal favourites are:

‘Another Way to Find You’ (Live)
‘Live As I’ll Ever Be’ (Live!)
‘It Ain’t Easy’
‘Small Revelations’

There is an excellent tribute album to Chris, ‘Link Of Chain’ featuring Mary Gauthier and Dave Alvin among many other roots music luminaries.

Chris Smither is well represented on YouTube and I especially like the ‘Extended Play’ clip.

Jesse Fuller : The Lone Cat – San Francisco Bay Blues

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A tribute to Jesse Fuller featuring :

San Francisco Bay Blues

John Henry

The Monkey and The Engineer

Where would I Go But To The Lord

‘Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognise that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.’ (Viktor Frankl)

‘I was leaving the south to fling myself into the unknown … I was taking a part of the South to transplant … To see if it would grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps to bloom.’ (Richard Wright)

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‘It took me a whole week one time when I wasn’t doing anything, and I made the thing I call the Fotdella in my back room. I just got the idea lying’ in my bed one night, just like I write songs. I lie down on the bed and write songs at night. I thought about doing’ something like that (the Fotdella) so that I could have something to go along with me and help me out instead of another fellow.

I just took some Masonite, heated some wood in hot water and rounded it off around a wheel. I learned that in the barrel factory where I used to work – that the way they do the staves. I tried to use bass fiddle strings, but they don’t sound so good, they stretch out of tune so I use piano strings. My wife named it the Fotdella because I play it with my foot, like, ‘Foot diller’ (Jesse Fuller)

There are very few jobs that I have really and truly coveted in my life.

But, I have to say that I deeply envy the Director of the august institution that is the Smithsonian Museum.

Obviously the museums comprise one of world’s great scholarly centres and acts as the custodian of millions of scrupulously catalogued treasures illuminating our understanding of human history in innumerable field of endeavour – so heading it up would be a major task.

To fortify myself each morning, before drowning in emails and meetings, I would take a tour of the popular culture exhibits.

I would linger over Dorothy’s ruby red slippers from the Wizard of Oz and gaze longingly at the Fonz’s leather jacket and just stop myself from sitting down in Archie Bunker’s chair.

But, I would stop and look longest at Jesse Fuller’s Fotdella – his unique foot operated percussion bass that added so much to his signature one man band sound.

I would then go back to my office and play very loudly (for who is going to tell the Director to keep it down!) Jesse Fuller’s, ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ and know for certain that I would be able to keep smiling all day!

You will probably, if you’re anything like me, want to play the above track several times in a row until you’re word perfect and have figured out how to do the correct buck and wing steps to accompany your own and Jesse’s vocals.

It’s now too late to warn you that Jesse Fuller’s music is seriously addictive.

Nothing for it but to ask your preferred record dealer to rush you a copy of the CD, ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ on the Original Blues Classics label from 1963 which is a beautifully compiled programme of his front rank repertoire.

Jesse didn’t make a record until 1958 when he was all of 62 years old.

But from then on he brought to his records, before he died in 1976, songs and performances filled to the brim with dignity, quizzical humour, instrumental virtuosity and sheer effervescent love of life.

He also brought the lessons he had learned from a life abundant with such trial, tribulation and adventure that it would take a movie starring a black Charlie Chaplin to do justice to it!

Jesse was born in Jonesboro, Georgia in 1896. Before he settled in Oakland California in 1929 he had worked, rambled and hoboed all around the country working in a bewildering variety of jobs to keep body and soul together.

He had left the Jim Crow South as soon as possible in search of safety, independence and the promise of a better future. His early experiences had been very harsh as he had been farmed out to brutal, abusive ‘foster parents’ following the death of his mother before he was 10.

Hitting the road he worked in the circus, on the railroads, in back breaking quarries, turpentine and levee camps and the aforementioned barrel factory.

All the while he was learning and performing songs gleaned from vaudeville and medicine shows, camp meetings, store front churches and the army of itinerant bluesmen and songsters who always appeared anyplace where black folks had a spare dollar to spend on booze and entertainment.

Jesse worked as a one man band because it meant he did not have to rely on anyone else to make a show happen.

He performed with a 12 string guitar and a neck rack incorporating a kazoo, harmonica and microphone as well as a hi-hat cymbal and his own Fotdella to create a true full band sound coming from a single individual.

Similarly, his repertoire was a virtual compendium of the black musical heritage of the mid twentieth century to which he added his own distinctively intelligent and charming songs.

So, Jesse performed Jazz tunes, children’s songs, work songs, spirituals, vaudeville recitations, hillbilly heartbreakers, instrumental party pieces and just about any kind of music that would hold and win an audience long enough for them to realise they should definitely put something substantial in the hat once he had finished.

Listen here to his wonderfully articulated guitar work on, ‘John Henry’ one of the staples of the black tradition and you will understand that though there were novelty act elements to Jesse Fuller that did not mean that he was anything less than a very fine musician and a performer who winningly brought his own thought through style to every number he took on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y__s9xKepGU

Jesse knew how to work an audience.

Maybe he had learned a little of that from his improbable time in Hollywood. It seems that in the early 1920s he had operated a shoe shine or hot dog stand outside the film studios and he had been befriended by none other than Douglas Fairbanks Jnr who managed to get Jesse some work as an extra on, ‘The Thief Of Bagdad’ and, ‘East Of Suez’ (honestly I’m not inventing this to spice up a life that’s rich enough already!).

For many years after his move to Oakland he worked in the ship yards with music a useful side line. It wasn’t until 1950 or so with work drying up that he gave music his full attention.

He soon found an enthusiastic audience in the Bay area not least among sharp eared young folk/blues revivalists like Rambling Jack Elliott who would carry songs like, ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ to the nations’ clubs and coffee houses where legions of would be Woody Guthries listened and learned.

As the 50s progressed he began to widen his circuit and venues like the Ash Grove in LA resounded to his music. By 1959 he had made his first record and featured at the Monterey Jazz Festival which led through the good offices of England’s Chris Barber to an enthusiastically received tour of the United Kingdom and Europe.

He would tour the UK very successfully again in 1966 even playing at the top of the newly opened London landmark the Post Office Tower.

Everywhere that Jesse played he took everything in his stride – a lone cat with sharp senses and a true sense of self worth.

Below, with his exuberantly thoughtful and comical song, ‘The Monkey And The Engineer’ you can hear Jesse play with his audience to rousing effect.

Jesse Fuller’s songs with their relaxed yet jaunty authority were manna for the young roots musicians coming up in the early 1960s. It’s clear that the young Bob Dylan’s harmonica style was influenced by Jesse and Dylan faithfully tipped his sailor’s cap by featuring Jesse’s, ‘You’re No Good’ on his 1962 debut album. Eric Clapton, Paul MacCartney, Richie Havens and The Grateful Dead have all doffed their headgear in similar fashion.

I am always planning, in some part of my mind, the cultural, ‘must- sees’ on my next American trip. One flag that’s firmly pinned into that itinerary is Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland where I plan to make my own salute to the late, great Lone Cat – Jesse Fuller thanking him for the joyous life affirming music that was his gift to us all.

I think I would at first hear in my head his lovely version of ‘Where Would I Go But To The Lord’ as heard below which would seem appropriate to the setting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfG9k0g8gY8

However, I’m sure before I bid my last farewell I would have to launch into my own ebullient version of, ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ with a little soft shoe shuffle thrown in as my own tribute to a wonderful artist.

One more time, ‘Walking with my baby down by the San Francisco Bay ……’

Sun and Stax Records Pioneers: Rufus and Carla Thomas!

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All families contains the history of multitudes through the cultures they are heir to and which they live within.

At the same time each family can be an agent for cultural change and development through their actions and works.

We stand on the shoulders of giants but we can see a destination ahead they could never reach.

This is particularly the case in families whose work lies within the popular arts.

If you grow up with music and talk about music is all around; if you watch shows from the side of the stage and know the drudgery as well as the glamour of, ‘show business’ you will either run a mile and seek, sensibly, to become a lawyer or farmer or you will think there is no other life worth living than that of writing, singing and performing songs and bathing in the approval of an audience.

http://Embed from Getty Images

The careers of Rufus and Carla Thomas, father and daughter, take us on a fascinating journey through twentieth century American popular culture.

We will encounter: travelling minstrel shows, the development of Afro-American radio and the birth and growth of two of the nations fountainhead records companies (Sun and Stax) which produced many of the greatest rock n roll, soul and rhythm and blues records ever made.

We will also meet music icons of the stature of Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley, B B King and Otis Redding and realise why the city of Memphis can justifiably lay claim to have been the capital city of American music.

Rufus Thomas was a magnetic figure with personality and character to burn. He had that most attractive and winning of human qualities – vitality.

There were no downcast faces when Rufus was around! He was a one man party who lit up every room he ever entered with his ebullience and appetite for creating and sharing enjoyment.

He was born in rural Mississippi in1917 moving to Memphis as a toddler.

It was in that bustling metropolis that he grew up and learned to become an entertainer who combined the talents of a dancer/hoofer, comedian, singer, talent show host and radio disc jockey.

I think that’s what you call an all rounder!

Leaving Booker T Washington High School in 1936 with the depression suffocating the nation he took his talents on the road throughout the South with the legendary F S Walcott Rabbit Foot Minstrels (commemorated in a lovely rowdy song by The Band).

‘The Foots’ were a glorious travelling tent show troupe which operated between 1900 and the late 1950s bringing comedy sketches and salty song and dance routines to any town, large or small, where the tent could be pitched and an audience drummed up.

Arriving in town the brass band would parade with comedians like Rufus announcing the wonders of the show to come. The stage, boards on a folding frame, would be set up with gasoline lamps acting as footlights.

While the liquored up audience waited for Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey or Louis Jordan to come on Rufus would whip up the crowd with comic dancing and jive jokes tailored to the local audience and introduce the dancing girls who invariably managed to increase the show’s temperature by several degrees centigrade.

After the War Rufus was back in Memphis working for a textile company and married with three children; Carla, Marvell and Vaneese. He hooked up again with his high school mentor, Nat D Williams, who was a key figure in Memphis Afro-American culture as teacher, journalist, talent spotter and pioneering radio host.

Nat D recognised that Rufus’ energy, affability and show business smarts gave him all the necessary qualities to be a successful talent show host. So, Rufus began to regularly host the shows at the Palace Theatre on Beale Street once announcing the youthful Riley (B. B.) King as the winner in the late 40s.

Rufus was still hoping to make it as a singer though singles on labels like Star, Chess and Meteor shifted few units.

The next stage in Rufus career was again given impetus in 1951 through the good offices of Nat D who brought him on to be a disc jockey for WDIA – a Memphis radio station which, uniquely at the time, used black DJs to broadcast to the considerable black audience in Memphis and anywhere else 50,000 watts of power could reach!

Radio was king in the first post war decade reaching into almost every home in the country and providing the soundtrack to millions of lives through immensely popular shows that gathered whole families round the set.

Rufus, with his easy charm was a radio natural and his, ‘Hoot and Holler’ show became essential listening not just for his own community but also for young white hipsters like Elvis Presley or Steve Cropper who just knew that they could play those rhythm and blues too if they were only given the chance.

As it happened in Memphis there was a man, one of the true heroes of American music, Sam Phillips who was able to make those dreams come true. Rufus, in the early 1950s was often at Sun studios at 706 Union Avenue working with Phillips as he recorded brilliant blues sides by artists like Howling Wolf.

It was Rufus who provided Sun with its first breakout single in 1953 with, ‘Bear Cat’ an answer record to Mama Thornton’s, ‘Hound Dog’ which reached No 3 in the R&B chart (this launched a series of legal actions but that’s another story).

Rufus let rip with the full force of his personality matching Big Mama all the way while adding a sly spin of his own to the story of mismatched lovers.

The featured stinging guitar is by Joe Hill Louis.

Turn this one up as loud as you can!

Rufus, like all the other black artists at Sun then faded into the background as Sam Phillips realised that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow could only be found by recording white artists, preferably young handsome guys, who could combine blues, rhythm and blues and country influences to create a new sound on the face of the earth – rock ‘n’ roll.

Enter Elvis Presley! Elvis was aware of Rufus through listening to WDIA and he always retained a fondness for ‘Tiger Man’ which Rufus had recorded at Sun.

Rufus continued to combine full time work at the textile plant with his entertainment career throughout the 1950s. Meanwhile, Carla who had been born in 1942 was soon displaying the family relish for singing and performing.

At the tender age of 10 she joined the WDIA sponsored Teen Town Singers and was combining her school duties with twice weekly rehearsals and a radio show every Saturday. Rufus could hear that his daughter had an attractive voice and unusual poise for such a young artist.

So, in 1959 Rufus decided to approach a new Memphis recording outfit, Satellite Records, headed up by siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton and persuaded them that they needed to move beyond the country and pop markets R&B to thrive in their home town and the rest of the nation.

Rufus and Carla recorded the duet, ‘Cause I Love You’ at Satellite’s studio and operational headquarters which was located in a former cinema/theatre on McLemore Avenue.

And, voila! Satellite had its first hit (helped by the distribution deal agreed with sharp eared Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records).

Soon after Jim and Estelle would use the first two letters of their surnames and create Stax Records.

The next time Carla’s name appeared on a record it was on the Atlantic label with a song she had written as a 16 year old, ‘Gee Whizz (Look At His Eyes).

Gee Whizz is a heart and soul on the sleeve love ballad that could only have been written by a teenager in the delirious throes of adolescent love/infatuation.

Do you remember that oh so sweet feeling as you gazed at your love object?

While no one could or should maintain that obsessive attachment to the dream of love its a poor soul that does not cherish a small remembrance of those heady days.

And, nothing can swoosh you back to those days with more efficiency than Carla’s utterly beguiling vocal here. Lean back, close your eyes and swoon!

The song became an immediate radio favourite and once Atlantic was behind it and Carla appeared on the nations premier pop TV show, ‘American Bandstand’ there was no stopping, ‘Gee’ from ascending to the top 10 of the national charts and a permanent place in the memories of a generation.

Carla then issued a string of singles on Atlantic and then Stax demonstrating that the attractively naive young girl was growing into a smart and sassy young woman who could convincingly embody a full range of adult emotions with engaging vocal style.

Listen to her here in 1963 with a song especially beloved by her European fans, ‘I’ll Never Stop Loving You’.

You’d have to have a stony heart and leaden feet not to be up and practicing your finest twists and twirls to this one!

In that same year of 1963 Rufus showed that there was still life in the old trouper as he released a series of driving singles calling us with unflagging energy and wit to get up off our butts and out onto the dance floor.

The most potent and memorable of these, ‘ Walking The Dog’ has become something of a Soul/R&B standard (even receiving the accolade of a cover by The Rolling Stones).

The video clip shows Rufus in full flow.

The mid 60s saw Carla and Stax records really hit their stride utilising teams of brilliant in house writers and the incomparable Booker T and The MGs as the house band.

A perfect example of the power of such collaborations is a Carla classic : B -A – B – Y. from 1966.

This pearl was authored by the great partnership of Isaac Hayes (a Teen Town alumni like Carla) and David Porter.

There’s gospel testifying here as well as soul enticement in Carla’s seductive vocal backed by a steam heat rhythm section topped off with a straight into your skull chorus – a big hit guaranteed!

The canny bosses at Stax observing the success of Motown duet partnerships like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had the inspired idea of teaming Carla with the top man at Stax and in fact the top man in soul of his era – Otis Redding.

Dubbed the King and Queen of Soul they recorded some excellent sides together including the big international hit, ‘Tramp’.

However, the track I’ve chosen to spotlight the duo is a wonderful reverie, ‘When Something Is Wrong With My Baby ..’.

Carla wisely never tries to match the inferno intensity of Otis, rather her caressing coolness offsets him perfectly making for a seriously sexy record.

I like to listen to this one with a large Gin and Tonic at hand.

Rufus and Carla were stars of the triumphant Stax/Volt tour of Europe in 1967 which has become legendary for the intensity of the artists performances and the fervour of the audience responses.

Back in Memphis Rufus continued to produce some excellent sides including, ‘Memphis Train’ and, ‘Sophisticated Sissy’ before striking gold again with a novelty dance song, ”The Funky Chicken’ which proved he had learned a lesson or two about pleasing an audience back in the Rabbit Foot days!

When it comes to selling a song Rufus has few competitors.

I have never managed to play this song only once so be prepared.

The end of the 60s closed out the glory days for both Rufus and Carla though both would record some valuable material later.

But, given the history above it is clear that singly and together they were a significant element of the magnificence of Memphis music in that golden era.

In an age of fluff and flummery it’s good to be reminded that some things and some people lived lives and made music that will always endure because it was grounded in everyday experience turned through talent and heightened expression into true art.

Now, Baby that is real!

 

popp

 

 

Van Morrison : Don’t Look Back

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‘Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers in love. But always meeting ourselves.’ (James Joyce)

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ (William Faulkner)

‘Can’t repeat the past? … Why of course you can!’ (Scott Fitzgerald)

‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’ (Scott Fitzgerald)

Van Morrison like all true artists carries an Eden within him that he returns to over and over again when he needs spiritual refreshment and musical inspiration.

This home place contains: the real and imagined streets and avenues of 1940s and 1950s Belfast; the boats in the harbour; the creeping morning fog and the booming foghorns; the scent of Shalimar and beeswax; the sounds of the musical saw and the real as prayer voice of Mahalia Jackson coming through the ether.

Off to the side a radio is always playing tuned in to AFN delivering the blessings of the High Priest or the Goons on the grand old BBC.

Hank Williams and Leadbelly are telling their eternal truths on the record player downstairs and somewhere almost in and almost out of sight a young girl, the young girl, is incarnating the vision of eternal and temporal beauty.

As he walks along the avenue the leaves on the trees tremble and dance and all the strings in heaven are harmonising (though he knows they can break too).

The energy contained within this Eden will be enough to power a vocational life with half a century or more of singing, songwriting and veil tearing live performances.

For he has the artists and pilgrim’s faith that the path that has been set out for him must surely lead him through triumphs, trials and tribulations eventually back to that first Eden again.

So when he is attracted to a song he hasn’t written himself it’s because he recognises some echo or intimation within the song’s imaginative structure; the melody, rhythm and lyric that promises to open a doorway to the longed for, never lost but never wholly present Eden.

The Eden whose essence he can reach out for and sometimes grasp in performance.

That’s what motivates him a thousand times more than the applause of the adoring fans or the plaudits of the critics.

The music of the great John Lee Hooker has often provided this doorway for Van. They share a cussed, defiant belief in their own individual visions and a refusal to tailor those visions to the demands of fashion or contemporary taste.

Van and John Lee were separated by twenty eight years in age, the Atlantic Ocean, race, the great depression and a World War.

However, this was mere happenstance for in the deepest levels of their musical being they were very close kin who knew the blues in the very marrow of their bones.

They were and in music still are to use the lovely Celtic expression Anam Cara – soul friends.

And, the blues is a diverse music embracing all the moods we are heir to including joy, sadness, despair and reverie.

Which is to say the blues is music that calls to the heart night and day through good times and bad; in our youth and in our old age.

It’s a companion and comfort on our pilgrimage through life. Van recognised the humanity and power of Hooker’s songs and that they were gifts that would keep on giving.

For a really great song’s power and mystery can never be exhausted but only further explored.

Each version melding the truths of the song with the character and personality a true artist will bring to the work and that will inevitably change over time.

Time, time, time: inexorably ticking on, beating on, surging through our lives; driving us forward while reminding us of its former presence and our former life all the time – all the time.

We can’t go back to that former time but we can’t, won’t, wholly leave it behind. We can’t shed the mind skin we are clothed in.

Every day contains the present, the past and the future and coming to terms with that is a key task of a well lived life – and it’s a hell of a subject for a song.

John Lee Hooker released Don’t Look Back as a single on Vee Jay in 1964. Van, always an assiduous listener, picked up quickly on it and his utterly ravishing version with Them was released in June 1965 on their debut LP.

It is said that Van considered his vocal here to be his best on the album and I agree with him.

The song is treated as a, ‘hold your breath and let me stop the world from turning while I tell you this’ dream ballad which only the greatest singers can ever really bring off.

And, Van triumphantly brings it off here. I can hear echoes of the way Arthur Alexander stills the heart with his understated passion.

Van Morrison’s respect, love and affection for the song and it’s composer is etched into every syllable of his scrupulously careful vocal which glows with inner fire.

The languid piano part, probably played by the late Peter Bardens, affects an electrically charged otherworldly sound that foregrounds Van’s lingering, beautifully imagined and controlled blues croon.

He sings the song, in this version, with infinite gentleness like a man singing to himself looking out the nighttime window as he waits for the sun to appear over the horizon and start another day.

Listen to the tenderness with which he phrases the lyric revealing the sureness and sadness at the heart of the song.

I remember hearing him sing, ‘… Stop dreaming … ‘ for the first time and having an intense out of body experience.

Van’s performance here is astonishing in its authority and audacity; especially for a youth barely out of his teens.

But, genius answers only to itself.

Before his performance of this luminous song was captured again, on his tour of Ireland in 1979, he had transformed himself from the wondrously gifted callow youth of 1965 into a completely realised master of his chosen craft.

He had produced at least four albums that can safely be accounted masterpieces.

The work of profound spiritual grace that is Astral Weeks; the incandescent Moondance; the exploratory revelations of St Dominic’s Preview and the blazing house wrecking testimony of Too Late To Stop Now.

He had also become a superb band leader who could choose talented, sympathetic musicians and mould them into crack outfits able to switch genres and animate arrangements with fluid power and ease.

He had clearly studied the Ray Charles and James Brown bands; noting the way they used horns and back up singers to heat and dramatise their performances.

Above all he needed listening musicians who would recognise, respond and surrender to those moments when he would become inspired and launch into extended improvisation that could take a song far beyond any rehearsal’s imaginings.

The 1979 band included Peter Van Hooke on drums and fellow Ulsterman Herbie Armstrong on rhythm guitar who would be faithful and watchful long term lieutenants.

Pat Kyle and John Altman gave the horns swing and sensuousness while Katie Kissoon and Anna Peacock sang their hearts out following or prefiguring their leaders vocal stylings.

Bobby Tench played gorgeous spiky guitar fills while Mickey Feat anchored the sound with his bass.

Peter Bardens was back after many musical adventures at Van’s side and showed he still knew how to second guess his mercurial leader’s thoughts.

A new sound (surely a response to the presence of Scarlet Rivera in Bob Dylan’s band) was provided by the entrancing violin playing of Toni Marcus.

With these resources at his command Van now gave, Don’t Look Back’ a more dynamic, searching blues and soul review arrangement that supported his stupendous vocal tour de force.

When he is on this kind of form he seems to control not just his brilliant musicians but also the forces of time, temperature and gravity affecting the audience and the venue.

You might observe that he becomes lost in the music but it seems to me it is rather that he steps away from the everyday into an old home – a magical, edenic realm where for those few minutes everything is in balance, where all is well and all shall be well.

No one can do this easily or guarantee a performance where this will occur.

All the more reason to treasure those occasions when we become with him dwellers on the threshold able to contemplate ascending the staircase that stretches all the way to moon.

Listen to John Altman’s imperious sax solo, the swelling power of the call and response vocals, the sweetness of the violin and the tidal power of the arrangement but above all marvel at the way Van incarnates the vision of the song in his powerful, tender and subtly nuanced vocal.

It’s one of his greatest performances comparable to his legendary, incendiary triumph singing Caravan at the Last Waltz.

So hear him sing a song that summons up the past that surrounds us all. Board the boat that’s ceaselessly borne back; meet the ghosts and the giants of your own life and recognise that the past is never past.

As a matter of fact try to live in the here and now.

Then go on and live into the future.

Footnote:

Don’t forget, if you haven’t already to read the previous posts on Van – featuring his performances of Brown Eyed Girl and Gloria.

In fact, I recommend checking out the archive generally if you’re new to the Jukebox.

Thanks to the premier Bob Dylan website ‘Expecting rain’ for providing a link to this post.

Bonnie Raitt, Barbara Lynn, Lucinda Williams & Rosetta Tharpe : Swingin’ Sisters !

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The School holidays are upon us and as is my wont I’m about to cross the ocean to a far away Isle where we can stretch out in the sun, sip something cool and refreshing and relax for a blessed fortnight.

The taxi is booked and the cases are nearly packed.

Before we take off there’s only one last thing to do – make sure that the faithful patrons of the Immortal Jukebox are left supplied with nourishing thoughts and sounds while I see how burnished and golden an Irish complexion can become in two weeks.

So I’ve dropped my spare nickels on some records intended to ensure your hips and hearts get a good workout while I’m away.

All these selections feature women artists who, without false modesty, stand front and centre playing a mean guitar while singing with passion and authority.

All of these artists deserve, and will get a post devoted to themselves later. But, in the meantime … Ladies and Gentlemen it’s the Swinging Summer Sisters Jubilee Festival!

To kick thing off we have Sister Rosetta Tharpe – a woman who was a force of nature (if there hasn’t been a hurricane Rosetta yet there should have been) defying all attempts to contain her ebullient personality and musical largesse within genre categories.

So she was a glorious gospel singer, a rowdy rhythm and blues shouter and a proto rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll guitar hero.

Whatever the nominal tradition she was working within the good sister believed in turning the dials up to 11 and barrelling straight at you!

She became a star of the gospel world in the 1930s and as the decades proceeded her work brought her a wider and more diverse audience all thrilling to the allure of her overwhelming talent and charisma.

The clip below is from a 1960s TV show.

Later in 1964 she was in England as part of one of those missionary blues and gospel tours that were like musical manna for devout fans who had previously only known of the legendary artists from hard to find records – look out for videos of her electric performance at a railway station with ranks of serried music buffs watching her across the tracks!

Raise the roof Sister, raise the roof!

Next up from Beaumont Texas the sultry smoky tones of the wonderful Barbara Lynne. The song is her self penned classic, ‘You’ll lose a good thing’ a big R&B hit from 1962 featuring her assured left handed guitar playing.

This one will slay you!

In a sense this is an answer record to all those, ‘slippin around’ soul braggarts who never seemed to think of the woman left at home while they were illicitly trysting at the dark end of the street.

Well, in this song Barbara makes the case in the most dignified, enticing and winning terms for the woman scorned.

Anyone listening to her incandescent entreaty here must think the guy in question would be a world class fool if he let this pearl slip through his fingers.

Something in the grain of Barbara’s voice lodges in your mind and grips your heart – once heard you’re never going to forget her.

I am not one for giving out too much advice but I do advise you to listen to and buy as many Barbara Lynne records as you possibly can – it’ll be an investment in emotional musical maturity that will pay you long term dividends.

Our next artist, flame haired mighty guitar mama Bonnie Raitt, needs very little introduction having had several career flowerings and triumphs over a forty year plus career.

She’s a time served blues veteran who can conjure up the spirits of Memphis Minnie and Sippie Wallace and trade licks and innuendos with John Lee Hooker himself.

Her tender or tormented slide guitar is integral to her sound and she loves to lean into a solo wrenching every ounce of musical meaning from the instrument.

Bonnie is a great interpretative singer with a keen ear for songs that have real emotional weight and reach. She can soar and swoop vocally to accent the strident or the seductive.

Her voice now has a vintage aged in the wood quality that admits to vulnerability while maintaining impressive strength.

She has recorded the definitive cover of Richard Thompson’s aching folk standard, ‘The Dimming Of The Day’, the classic modern break – up rock ballad, ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ and the knock ’em dead in the aisles swooner, ‘Love Has No Pride’.

She has judiciously looted the song catalogues of John Hiatt and Paul Brady and has latterly moved onto the territory of the great American Songkeper himself – Bob Dylan.

To represent Bonnie I’ve chosen her take on fellow blues stylist Chris Smither’s, ‘Love Me Like A Man’.

This is a performance by an artist wholly in command of her talent, her material and her audience.

*

Finally an artist, Lucinda Williams who wouldn’t comprehend the meaning of half hearted if she tried.

I first saw her in London sometime in the early 1980s when she supported Mary Chapin Carpenter. The latter presented her literate, beautifully crafted song/stories with exemplary professionalism.

However, it was Lucinda’s passionate intensity that really struck home to the extent that I virtually ran from the concert to the nearest record shop to buy all her available albums!

Lucinda’s music is firmly grounded in the southern verities of the blues and deep dyed country with added rock stylings. The shades of Hank Williams and Charlie Patton surround her approvingly as she plays.

She has written at least one classic song – the gut wrenching elegy, ‘Sweet Old World’ and her take on Nick Drake’s, ‘Which Will’ is a magical recording that hangs in the air around you long after it has finished.

Lucinda sings from the core of her being and when she is on she is a mesmerising performer who will have you holding your breath one minute, crying the next then reeling home wondering how she does it.

There’s no one like her.

I’ve chosen her boozy, bluesy reverie, ‘Big Red Sun’ to close out this post.

A Lucinda Williams concert is the kind where you might find easily yourself falling in or out of love, falling down and not noticing and wonder the next morning why your head hurts yet you still sport an ear splitting grin.

Feel free to take the top of the Tequila bottle and sway along.

Happy Holidays!