Barrelhouse Buck's Alton Blues

Barrelhouse Buck McFarland first recorded for the legendary Paramount label in 1929 and Decca had him wax sides in 1934-1935. Bob Koester was living in St. Louis when  he located McFarland in 1957 with the help of Speckled Red and Charlie O’Brien. Koester then recorded him in 1961 shortly after Sam Charters had recorded McFarland for Folkways. 

I do not believe the selections on the new Delmark CD Alton Blues have previously been issued. In any event, is a delight to hear real barrelhouse piano, especially when played as solidly as here. He displays strong left hand bass and right hand chords while hammering out single notes as exhibited on Charlie’s Stomp, as well as on the more meditative accompaniment (still with hammered single note runs) on Railroad Blues. This number he sings in a very husky, straightforward fashion. 

Included are two takes of his signature song, I Got to Go Blues, which he waxed for Paramount, with a marvelous melancholic vocal as well as a strutting instrumental, Barrelhouse Buck. This is a marvelous session with variety in material, and includes some brief spoken tracks enhancing a wonderful album for anyone who loves blues piano.

The above review appeared originally in the May-June 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 293) as part of a review of several Delmark releases. I have made some stylistic changes. I received my review copy from Delmark.

Grant Green at The Holy Barbarian in St. Louis

While not being released with the fanfare accorded a recent release of the recent Resonance release of Wes Montgomery Echoes of Indiana Avenue, Uptown Records has released a similar live recording of another legendary guitarist Grant Green, The Holy Barbarian/ St. Louis 1959. Like the Montgomery recording, this issues a live recording of Green from before he would receive national prominence. He is heard with an organ trio of organist Sam Lazar and Chauncey Williams augmented by the white tenor saxophonist Bob Graf at a short-lived coffee house that was pioneering in bringing together black and white musicians and audiences together at a time when the authorities frowned on such mingling (to say it mildly). Bob Blumenthal’s essay that is part of the accompanying booklet discusses the club and the harassment that led to its eventual closing not long after these recordings were made. There are some press clippings in the booklet describing the harassment that led to its close.

At the time of these performances, Green was on a cusp of his national career. His participation in after-hours jamming with members of Harry Edison’s band in St. Louis led him to make his first recordings with members of Edison’s band that appeared under Jimmy Forrest’s name for Delmark (All the Gin Is Gone and Black Forrest). Green was the best known of the artists but the others had interesting careers including Graf who was a veteran of Woody Herman’s Band and having returned to St. Louis was recorded by Bob Koester for an album issued on Delmar (which would become Delmark). Sam Lazar took up organ after hearing Jimmy Smith, and was signed to Chess’ Argo subsidiary where he recorded three albums between 1960 and 1962, the first of which included Green and Williams. 

This live date was from Christmas, 1959 with the exception of one track from February, 1960, and is really nice album of straight-ahead organ jazz with Green and Graf shining. Graf’s playing illustrates why labels such as East Coast and West Coast sometimes are meaningless. Listening to the blues titled for this release as The Holy Barbarian Blues, I was struck by how much his playing reminded me of Dexter Gordon and Teddy Edwards while Green is sizzling with his driving single note runs. Lazar may have had limitations with his use of the bass pedal, but he really gets things greasy on this on which everyone takes a solo. This is a pretty hot blues performance that fades to an end.

Another bluesy performance taken at a medium tempo is Caramu (Blue Caribou), that Blumenthal speculates which gain opens with more bluesy tenor followed by Green who makes his initial statement and crafts his solo before Graf taking the lead out. Groovin‘ High, is one of the standards the group performed that night with Green displaying some of the musical imagination as well as chops that would lead to his greater recognition (By the end of 1960 he would begin his Blue Note association). Lazar’s Deep is another lengthy blues that is attacked by the group with considerable fervor. 

A driving rendition of Blue Train, includes some poetry from Pete Simpson who was also the MC that night which was included to illustrate the atmosphere of the club which presented poetry as well as music. Green is really strong here before Lazar takes the tempo down as Simpson delivers his poetry that Blumenthal observes“ is not likely to be included in any anthologies of twentieth-century verse.” Simpson is riffing on lines from lyrics in classic blues and American popular songs in his poetry, although few would disagree with Blumenthal's assessment of the poetry’s quality. 

Blue Train concludes nearly 70 minutes of what was a strong performance of blues and hard-bop organ jazz. It is another one of Uptown Records Flashback Series that also included an excellent Dexter Gordon in Montreal CD. The sound is quite good given the source material and the accompanying booklet is superb. This terrific release will be essential to fans of Grant Green and certainly one that fans of hard bop will certainly want to give a listen to.

I purchased this recording.

Junior Wells' Classic Hoodoo Man Blues Receives Expanded Edition

It was fall of 1967 that I picked up a monaural vinyl album by Junior Wells, Hoodoo Man Blues on Delmark at a downtown Cleveland record store. It was one of those albums that helped me an enthusiast of blues music and a fan of Mr. Wells. Hoodoo Man Blues has long been acknowledged as a classic of the post-war Chicago blues and has been honored as a Grammy® Hall of Fame Inductee. It has been reissued several times including on CD, but Delmark has just reissued it again in a deluxe new expanded edition that includes a number of previously unissued tracks with some studio patter added in. Also included with the digi-pak packaging is a booklet that contains the original liner notes, the added notes for a prior CD release and new comments from Bob Koester along with many previously unpublished photos from the session.

The original release especially holds up sounding as contemporary and vital as ever. The session was engineered by Stu Black who did some Chess sessions one really can appreciate what a superb job he did on the two track stereo tapes the sessions were recorded with. The clarity that allows Buddy’s chords and fills to ring clearly even when at a subdued volume as well as the shimmer of Billy Warren’s cymbals (especially the wonderful rendition of In the Wee Wee Hours) and the at times guitar-like bass lines of Jack Myers. Of course Junior is front and center with some of the best vocals and harp playing he ever recorded.

Koester notes that this was the first recording of “a working Chicago blues band recorded in the studio for lp release with no 45 rpm singles planned and the artists given full freedom as to the running time of the tracks.” Its something they did not realize at the time when they did the session. As many know, Buddy Guy was listed under the pseudonym Friendly Chap on early releases of the album. It was the name suggested by Pete Brown, a British kid who worked at Koester’s Jazz Record Mart, and used because they thought Buddy was under contract to Chess. And there is the use of a Hammond B-3 Leslie speaker by Buddy Guy. It seems that their was an issue with Buddy’s guitar amp, and engineer Stu Black wanted to get the session rolling so he wired Guy into that speaker until Guy’s amp could be repaired. It certainly lent a distinctive tone to Wells’ rendition of Hoodoo Man Blues.

What a terrific band and the reissue contains the twelve tracks that appeared on vinyl followed by alternates of In the Wee Wee Hours, Hoodoo Man Blues, and Kenny Burrell’s Chitlins Con Carne, (that have been previously reissued) and three alternates of Yonder Wall. The two renditions of In the Wee Wee Hours, on which Junior plays chromatic, may have his strongest harp playing, a real nice vocal and solid drumming with nice cymbal work There is a new tune as well, “I Am Stranded,” a Jimmy Reed-styled number credited to Guy. An enjoyable performance but not as strong as the other songs, and the alternates are very good, but one would be hard-pressed to find any of them superior to the issued tracks. Minor bits of studio chatter are also included by probably will be ignored after the first times one listens to this.

Delmark is to be thanked for this expanded Hoodoo Man Blues. The additional material is a nice addition to the original classic album and listening to this one appreciates just how classic that album was. With the wonderful packaging, terrific sound and of course the timeless blues performances, this is an essential blues recording.


I received my review copy from the record company.

Big Joe Williams Got Wild

With a career that spanned decades and one whose music was robust and vital until his passing, Big Joe Williams is one of the significant blues figures whose music perhaps has unjustly forgotten. In addition to the wonderful Delmark album referenced in this review, he made wonderful recordings for Arhoolie, Folkways and other labels, in addition to his wonderful recordings prior to World War II. This review originally appeared in the January-February 2004 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 266).

Big Joe Williams, whose recording career spanned the the thirties to the eighties, was among the greatest Delta bluesmen who played and traveled with many legends and contributed one of the blues most enduring classics, Baby Please Don’t Go. The selections on this latest release, I Got Wild (Delmark) include alternate takes to previously issued selections, unissued tracks and some studio talk.


From the opening Coffeehouse Blues to the closing remake of Washboard’s Sam Back Door (familiar to some from Little Walter’s recording, Tell Me Mama), these recordings offer Williams’ fierce, rhythmic nine-string guitar playing and his fervent vocals. Its amusing listening to the studio chat before his rendition of Charlie Patton’s Peavine Blues, where a couple of strings are broken so the engineer announces, Big Joe Williams and his six and half string blues, where he is accompanied by bassist Ransom Knowling.


Big Joe was probably the single biggest influence on David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards and in all fairness to Edwards who is highly revered, Edwards’ music only occasionally reached the level of Williams. Bob Koester’s recollections of Williams in the liner notes are also very informative. Big Joe Williams belongs in every blues collection, and if perhaps I would first recommend Piney Wood Blues on Delmark, this disc is full of strong delta blues and recommended on its own.

This is still available and I received a review copy from Delmark.