Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington DC's Homemade Blues by Phil Wiggins and Frank Matheis

Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington DC's Homemade Blues
Phil Wiggins and Frank Matheis
2020: University of Mississippi Press: 286 pp

It is welcome that this long-awaited collaboration between bluesman Phil Wiggins and journalist Frank Matheis has finally arrived in print. Centered around Phil Wiggins' recollection of his life and his career as a blues artist, he and Matheis provide welcome documentation of the Washington D.C. acoustic blues scene and community over the past half-century or so. In addition to Phil Wiggins autobiography, they give an overview of the D.C. blues scene in the 1960s, of performers that have been and are part of the D.C. acoustic blues scene, Phil Wiggins' tips for harmonica players, and Barry Lee Person's interviews with John Cephas and Archie Edwards.

The book observes the rise of interest in whites for the blues that took place in the 1960s when the likes of Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James would play Ontario Place and other venues. At the same time as D.C.'s own homemade acoustic blues scene was being carried on by members of the African American such as Mother Scott, Flora Bolton, Chief Ellis, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, John Cephas & Phil Wiggins who were carrying forward with a songster and Piedmont blues tradition.

In this introductory chapter, Wiggins & Matheis observe that a convergence of cultural forces helped make Washington, D.C. so special to sustain a thriving country blues scene for forty years. Archie Edwards' Barbershop, with its Saturday afternoon jam sessions, was, and is, a central meeting point for blues musicians, young and old. There were also chroniclers such as Barry Lee Pearson and Otis Williams. The Smithsonian Institution, with its Folklife Center and annual Folklife Festival, provided opportunities for performances before substantial crowds. In contrast, organizations like the National Council for the Traditional Arts and the Travellin' Blues Workshop, publications like Unicorn Times, musical venues, blues radio programs on WPFW by the likes of Bill Barlow, Nap Turner and Jerry 'The Mama' Washington, and other local radio stations provided a foundation. Also prominent was an older generation being willing to carry on the acoustic blues traditions.

Phil's story is split into three parts. The first part deals with his early life, how he started playing music, his entrance into the D.C. acoustic blues community and the beginning of his career as a musician. The lengthiest part of Phil's story is devoted to his partnership with John Cephas. The final section is dedicated to Phil's various activities since John Cephas passed.

I have known Phil Wiggins for over 30 years and admired him as a musician and a person. Still, there was so much about him that goes beyond his musical persona. In telling his story, he gives a glimpse of the D.C. blues community in which he was mentored, then one he flourished in and became a mentor to many today. Phil also provides us with a perspective of someone from the blues culture. Many of those writing about the music (myself included) are outsiders, no matter how much we love this music.

Phil grew up during the time that Jim Crow was being dismantled, which lends insight into how this affected him. He describes starting to music, and his relationship with Flora Molton, Ed Morris, Mother Scott, Archie Edwards, and John Jackson. He would also meet and learn from Johnny Shines, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and Henry Townsend. Then at the 1976 Folklife Festival, Phil would meet big Chief Ellis and John Cephas, with whom he started playing with as the Barrelhouse Rockers.

Big Chief Ellis would return to his home state of Alabama and pass away, which led to Cephas and Wiggins becoming a duo. There is plenty of insight on John Cephas, and others in this lengthy chapter. There was much he experienced and learned from, such as Archie Edwards' Bunker Hill Road barbershop being the center of this acoustic blues community. But also I learned much about Cephas' career as a carpenter at the D.C. National Guard Armory, as well as being one of the foremost fingerstyle guitarists. While born in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, he loved living in the country down in Bowling Green, Virginia. John was also a master musician and one of the richest vocalists in the blues (one who evoked Big Bill Broonzy with the depth and warmth of his expressive vocals).

Their first album was recorded for a German label and part of a series "Living Country Blues U.S.A.," and labeled the pair, Bowling Green John Cephas and Harmonica Phil Wiggins, which were stage names they would eventually discard. Phil also played on Flora Molton's album in this series, which also had an album devoted to Archie Edwards. Phil observes that they recorded some of their standard repertoire for this recording. Among the many insights Phil provides is that, for circumstances he describes, he was not satisfied with many of the recordings at the time they were made. Listening to them today, Phil can appreciate them in a manner he previously had not. With John Cephas, Phil traveled throughout the world and had an inquisitiveness about the people and cultures he met that he details in his recollections.

Phil also provides some insight into the founding of the Augusta Heritage Center Blues Week at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. Joan Fenton invited him after John Jackson had recommended Phil, starting a career of teaching the blues as well as playing that continues to today. Sparky Rucker was another instructor. The next year John Cephas was added to the faculty, and over the years, the Augusta Heritage Center Blues Week has become well known plus inspiring similar workshops around the world.

The last part of Phil Wiggins' story involves carrying on his legacy and the various partnerships and projects he has engaged in. He partnered with the Corey Harris, Rick Franklin, Eleanor Ellis, and Nat Reese. Reese, like Howard Armstrong, was a performer of a variety of songs that went beyond the blues. With this inspiration, Phil formed the Chesapeake Sheiks with whom he might perform a ballad that Louis Armstrong recorded, as well as a Slim & Slam number. He regularly still performs with Eleanor Ellis and has a fruitful collaboration with an Australian, Dom Turner, with whom he has performed at the Bryon Bay Blues Festival, and continues to teach and mentor others. As he does elsewhere in his narrative, he intersperses short bits about these persons.

As mentioned, Phil has tips for harmonica players. Also, Barry Lee Pearson interviews of John Cephas and Archie Edwards that appeared in living Blues are reprinted. Finally, there are short portraits of significant persons and institutions that were part of the D.C. acoustic blues scene. These include portraits of Flora Molton; John Jackson; Esther Mae "Mother" Scott; Bill Harris; The Festival of American Folklife; the Gaines Brothers; Eleanor Ellis; and several persons associated with Archie Edwards barbershop including Mike Baytop, Mr. Bones, Nap Brundage, N.J. Warren, Warner Williams and Jay Summerour, and M.S.G. The Acoustic Trio.

The highest compliment I can make of this book, besides how much I enjoyed reading it, is that I learned so much about the D.C. acoustic blues scene. It is also handsomely illustrated. "Sweet Bitter Blues" is an invaluable addition to the literature about the blues.

I purchased this book.

Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop Music

Todd Mouton
Way Down in Louisiana: Clifton Chenier, Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop Music
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Just released is Todd Mouton's excellent new book on Louisiana Music "Way Down in Louisiana." The book is centered on the great Clifton Chenier, but in addition to Mouton's biography of the great zydeco legend, he weaves in portraits on a number of Louisiana acts including Chenier alumni Buckwheat Zydeco, Sonny Landreth, and Lil, Buck Sinegal along with other acts, many who have been touched in some way by Chenier's influence including Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Filé, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys; Zachary Richard, Couteau, Lil Band O' Gold, Bonsoir Catin, and Roddie Romero & the Hub City All-Stars. Many of the portraits appear to have been previously published (likely in "OffBeat"), but have been updated from original publication. It is the four chapters devoted to Chenier that make this book essential as Mouton traces his life and his music's evolution along with his many extensive recordings with recollections of Buckwheat Zydeco, Chris Strachwitz, Lil Buck, Landreth, son C.J. Chenier, the late John Hart and others helping flesh out this gentleman who saxophonist and visual artist Dickie Landry recalled first hearing Chenier and thinking it "sounded like surf music from Jupiter." In addition to Mouton's narrative, this book is wonderfully illustrated with photos (many rare) and album covers and includes recommended listening for each chapter. Anybody who has listened to Chenier's music or some of the artists will love this book.

Released at the same time as this volume is a documentary DVD produced by Carl Colby, "Clifton

Chenier" (The Phoenix Learning Group) that captures Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band at a dance in Louisiana in the mid-1970s. This video captures Chenier, brother Cleveland with arguably his best that included Lil Buck, Buckwheat Zydeco on keyboards and the great John Hart on saxophone. Mixed in with performances from a dance at The Kingfish in Baton Rouge is video from a performance from Jay's Lounge and Cockpit in Cankton, Louisiana, and a brief clip showing a cock fight (some cajun and zydeco lounges at the time also had a cock pit). This may be unsettling but fortunately brief and the bulk of the video is nothing but some of the best Chenier on video this writer has seen with one of the greatest roots music bands of all time doing 15 numbers including some of his most famous numbers such as "Bon Ton Roulet," "Party Down," "Calinda," "Zydeco Est Pas Salé," and "Black Gal," along with covers of Fats Domino's "Hello Josephine and a stone cold rendition of Lowell Fulson's "Black Nights." This is modestly packaged, but the performance is spellbinding and gives a sense of why Chenier was (and still is) so loved. And the magnificent tenor sax of Blind John Hart is such a bonus.

I was a supporter of the Kickstarter campaign to help get the book published and received the DVD in addition as a premium. Information on this book and the DVD is available on the website, http://waydowninlouisiana.com/. The DVD cover on the website differs from the one I received (the cover above). Not only is there links to buy the book and DVD, but there is a free downloadable sample and a performance from the DVD which I have also included below.

Charles Mingus Speaks

Mingus Speaks
John F Goodman
photos by Sy Johnson
2013: University of California Press

Charles Mingus was one of the singular figures of jazz from the fifties through the seventies. As a bassist, composer, and band-leader, he was a formidable figure and person who left behind some of the most memorable body of compositions and recordings. He was thoughtful, intense, blunt, outspoken, humorous and, sometimes, volatile. John F Goodman was a writer for Playboy who did a number of jazz features for that publication who reviewed Mingus’ 1972 comeback concert and got intimate with him and some of his musical associates. The result is Mingus Speaks from the University of California Press.

Goodman interviewed Mingus a number of times and the conversations on a variety of topics are what this book is centered around including the comeback concert, jazz and his own music, his dealings with musicians and club owners, his personal troubles, the publication of his book Beneath the Underdog, his relationships on women and his viewpoints on issues of race. Goodman supplements these with interviews and commentary from Mingus’ associates including arranger Sy Johnson (also an accomplished photographer whose photos illustrate the book), Sue Mingus, Teo Macero, George Wein, Max Gordon (Gordon’s recollection of dealing with Mingus include when Mingus tore off the Village Vanguard’s front door and punched Jimmy Knepper), Paul Jeffrey,  and Bobby Jones.

We get discussions relating to the recording of artists and Mingus’ preparations for major concerts and the chaos relating to some of them. For example, Johnson notes that somewhat chaotic preparation for the comeback concert at Carnegie Hall as Mingus would be continuing to revise the charts up until the actual performance. Mingus was not a fan of the avant-garde artists like Ornette Coleman (and I note Bradford Marsalis recently made similar comments) asserting they could not play straight stuff. He expressed a similar antipathy to fusion and rock music, being particularly outraged by the declining visibility of jazz on the radio. The interviews and commentary from others round out and provide context for the conversations presented.

Mingus Speaks is an invaluable addition to the literature on Charles Mingus, aand jazz literature in general. Goodman’s assembly of this material fleshes out this larger than life legend while providing insight into his working methods and his life. It is a valuable supplement to Beneath the Underdog and Gene Santoro’s Mingus biography, Myself When I Am Real.

I received my review copy from the publisher.

A Couple of Blue Notes

Carla Marciano

I believe it was a link to a free download on allaboutjazz.com that turned me on the Carla Marciano, an Italian saxophonist from Salerno, Italy. Listening to the download immediately led me to download on itunes (and its available elsewhere) her new recording Stream of Consciousness (AlfaMusic). She elads a quartet of her on saxophone; Alessandro La Corte on piano; Aldo Vigorito on bass and Gaetano Fasono on drums. I ahve seen her referred to as John Coltrane's daughter and listening to this recording it is immediately evident from the opening God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, which certain will evoke Coltrane's rendering of Greensleeves, to the title three-part suite where she and her combo will make some wonder if this is a previously unissued Coltrane recording. What's interesting is that the suite is akin to some of Trane's freer recordings. Anyway this lady has certainly left a strong impression on me and this is well worth checking out.

Here website biography is at http://www.carlamarciano.it/bio.asp

Miles Davis - The Complete Illustrated History

Miles Davis - The Complete Illustrated History, published by Voyageur Press of Minneapolis, Minnesota is a marvelous graphic overview of one of the most important, influential and original artists of the Twentieth Century. This coffee-table sized volume provides an overview of Miles Davis’ life accompanied not simply by wondrous and classic photography, but also short essays by his musical colleagues, jazz critics and  historians and cultural historians. The who package is quite well done and the various comments from those of his contemporaries like Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Lenny White, Ron Carter and Clark Terry and such noted jazz writers as Francis Davis, Ashley Kahn and Robin D.G. Kelley, certainly help flesh out a bit of his personality as well as his musical history. This is the second such book on Miles (We Like Miles came out two years ago to accompany a Miles Museum exhibit in Paris and Montreal) and is certainly a must for those who don’t have the prior volume, but also stands on its own for those (like myself) who have the earlier book. 

If you go to Barnes & Noble’s website or to amazon, you can get the flavor of this volume from the preview that is available. 

I purchased both of these items.

Marvelous Coffee Table Book Celebrates John Philip Sousa

John Philip Sousa's America: The Patriot's Life in Images and Songs
by John Philip Sousa IV with Loras John Schissel
GIA Publications

The America of John Philip Sousa was a far different, and perhaps simpler, time than now, but there is little doubt that John Philip Sousa, as the Director of the United States Marine Band, as a composer of marches (leading him to become known as "The March King") and then leader of the Sousa Band, became one of the best-known Americans of his time and his music became a part of the fabric of the United States and still performed today including The Stars and Stripes Forever.

John Philip Sousa's America is a look at his life, mostly through a wealth of unpublished and rare photographs, newspaper clippings, caricatures, publicity stills, and other archival material that accompany the reflections of Sousa's great-grandson on the March King's life, from his upbringing in Washington DC through the Civil War, his marriage, his initial forays into march music and the remarkable career that ended with his death in 1932. It was a career that included tours across the United States and through Europe and Asia. He was also a recording star in the early days of musical recordings and alumni of his band included Arthur Pryor who had a successful career leading a similar band to Sousa's, and Meredith Willson, who brought us the classic Broadway musical, The Music Man. Today, his music is played world-wide, and not simply for Presidents.

In this narrative, Sousa's great-grandson is assisted by Lora John Schissel a senior musicologist at the Library of Congress. This is not a full scholarly biography of Sousa, but rather an affectionate look back at his remarkable life. This profusely illustrated book (hundreds of photos and illustrations) is a visual feast. Also included is a CD comprised mostly of performances of Sousa's music by the United States Marine Band with a brief spoken recording of Sousa, there is a recording by the Sousa Band performing The Stars and Stripes Forever. It is an invaluable addition to the literature on the music of the post-Civil War to World War I era, and part of musical environment from which jazz and modern popular music emerged out of.

I received a review copy of this book from a publicist. Here is a video of the United States Marine Band Performs The Stars and Stripes Forever.

Rick Coleman's Blue Monday-Fats Domino Bio

I briefly blogged about Rick Coleman’s biography of Fats Domino back in May, 2006 which I would subsequently review in Jazz & Blues Report (August 2006, issue 285). That was one of my earliest blog entries here, but since this excellent biography is available in paperback, it is worth bringing to folks attention once more. I note that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honored Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew's contributions this past fall. This book should not be hard to locate.

BLUE MONDAY: FATS DOMINO AND THE LOST DAWN OF ROCK’N’ROLL
by Rick Coleman

(DA CAPO 2006)

Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino is one of the most significant performers of the last half of the twentieth century, yet because of his easy-going persona and his rather quiet life outside of performing, his contributions to blues and rock’n’roll have not been given their due. This biography by Rick Coleman, who authored the booklet for the Bear Family box set of Domino’s Complete Imperial Recordings, is twenty years in the making and hopefully will result in Domino being recognized as the pillar of modern American music that he is. The fact that Fats is unappreciated perhaps reflects a certain Eurocentrism that marks much of pop music writing and rock media that inflates the importance of popular, but derivative rock artists at the expense of true music innovators. After all Lynard Skynard is in the Rock’N’Roll Hall of Fame, but the much more original Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson is not.

Domino is a private man and somewhat shy, despite his ability to thrill audiences when performing. Coleman traces his biography and development as a musician in the context of the times including his father’s move to the Ninth Ward area, then a relatively rural area near the Industrial Canal, to the horrible events around Hurricane Katrina which devastated Domino’s home that was still on the same tract of land his father had purchased decades before.

Domino grew up in one of the most remarkable musical cities this country has ever had. Coleman traces its history, including the infamous history relating to segregation of the races which is invaluable in understanding Domino’s impact, not simply on music but in bringing people of different backgrounds together. Given the general easy going image of Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino, one is likely to be surprised when reading this about the riots his live performances often engendered. These riots were most often the result of those who objected to whites and blacks attending an event together, and even worse in the racist eyes of many, dancing and socializing together.

Influenced by Amos Milburn especially, Fats Domino was one of the greats in a long-standing New Orleans piano tradition. Roy Brown’s Recording of Good Rockin’ Tonight, is the earliest shot in the musical revolution of modern rhythm and blues that generated rock and roll. From when he went in the studio and cut his speeded reworking of the traditional New Orleans song Junker’s Blues as The Fat Man, Domino had a recording career that for about a decade and a half outsold anybody except for Elvis, and his music inspired performers including Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Lennon and countless others.

Coleman traces Domino’s recording and performing career as well as the major events of his personal life, but without focusing on scandals and then continues when Domino had ceased to be a major recording artist but remained a powerful live attraction on the oldies circuit and in Las Vegas. From when he first traveled to Europe in the mid-sixties, the adulation he received overseas led to regular tours there. And furthermore the level of his music remained consistently high. There is plenty of material here that was unfamiliar to me. I was not aware that of the many Domino-Bartholomew compositions, Domino’s chief contributions were the lyrics and the basic music, which Bartholomew worked and elaborated on. Also, I was not aware that Bartholomew generally played a very limited role in Domino’s live touring as we are given the details of the various persons who were members of the band and some of their foibles as well as musical contributions. But names like Earl Palmer, Roy Montrell, Herb Hardesty, Lee Allen and other names familiar to rock’n’roll and R&B collectors are part of this story as is label mate Rick Nelson.

Coleman has put together an impressive work that is long overdue. There is a factual quality of much of this, but again that is partly the result of Domino’s own private nature. He is best when describing some of the recordings and performances and there is a thorough list of sources although a list of recordings would have been very welcome here, or at least a listing of available recordings. But this is simply a small quibble on a most impressive work about a true Giant and Legend.

I must confess that I do not remember if I purchased this or received a review copy from the publisher.

Innerviews Provides Creative Insights

Innerviews: Music Without Borders
by Anil Prasad
Foreword by Victor Wooten
2010: Abstract Logix Books

On the cover of the fascinating new book, “Innerviews: Music Without Borders,” it says Extraordinary Conversations with Extraordinary Musicians. Anil Prasad has been editing Innerviews, which he calls the web’s longest-running music magazine, since 1994 and is also a contributor to Guitar Player and Bass Player publications. Innerviews offers interviews with musicians in a wide variety of genres and styles of music, including rock, jazz, fusion, hip-hop, world music, pop, and folk. The interviews are intended to get away from typical celebrity oriented interviews and to “enable artists to speak about topics that matter to them.”

Prasad in his introduction to the interviews collected here states “Innerviews’ focus on artists with expansive creative mindsets are clearly speaking to an underserved demographic in the world of music journalism: the thinking listeners for whom music isn’t just aural wallpaper or a lifestyle component, but rather a living, breathing, essential part of everyday existence. …”

Rather than focus on meaningless trivia, soulless sales data, or simply promoting their latest recording or tour, Prasad’s aim is to get the “musicians to delve deep into their souls to discuss topics that really matter to them.” And he has done this since 1994 with a number of interviews that are on the web site, www.innerviews.org. The book “Innerviews” brings together 24 interviews of Jon Anderson, Björk, Bill Bruford, Martin Carthy, Stanley Clarke, Chuck D, Ani DiFranco, Béla Fleck, Michael Hedges, Jonas Hellborg, Zakir Hussain, Leo Kottke, Bill Laswell, John McLaughlin, Noa, David Sylvian, Tangerine Dream, David Torn, Ralph Towner, McCoy Tyner, Eberhard Weber, Chris Whitley, Victor Wooten, and Joe Zawinul. I do not believe these interviews are on the website, although there may be earlier interviews by some of these individuals up there.

Each interview is preceded by Prasad’s concise summary of their musical biographies. Then he starts asking about some of the issues the artist has in the creative process. His first question of Jon Anderson (best known for his work in Yes) is “Provide some insight into your creative process.” From Anderson’s answer, Prasad inquires into how Anderson channels his philosophical and spiritual perspectives into the music he writes. A further inquiry is into the group dynamics of Yes that made them so remarkable between 1971 and 1974. Similarly after discussing Bjork’s career, including an all-vocal album, he asks her “How did knowing you were going to attempt an all-vocal album affect how you wrote material for it.” Or, to Bill Bruford “Describe your approach to collaborating with Ralph Towner and Eddie Gomez during the making of ‘If Summer Had Its Ghosts.’” Later he asks Bruford “What are some of your key bandleading philosophies?”

I cited the above queries to give a sense of the concerns that can be found in all of these interviews, which include the creative process, how one collaborates with other musicians, how the nature of a project affects how material is composed. This is not to mean that other matters are ignored, such as McCoy Tyner reflecting on the deification of John Coltrane or elevation of artists by the public beyond the realm of humanity. The musicians themselves are eloquent spokesmen for themselves, as Tyner in responding to the question of deification states “And athletes. Yeah, we have a tendency to do that. Sometimes we’re very destructive too. We take a person and build him up and then we sometimes bring him down. To say, ‘Well, okay, yeah. If you want me to be a god, fine. I accept that’ can be a little risky.”

Then there is Stanley Clarke who in his interview discusses turning down Miles Davis. Noting that after Chick Corea’s “Light as a Feather” he got calls from tons of bands including what was left of the Doors. “Anyway, Miles used to come see Return to Forever at the Village Vanguard. In those days, it was still done the way they did in the ‘50s. They would just come to the gig and say ‘Man, I want you to play in my band.’ I’ll never forget it. Miles came to the Vanguard in this weird, red leather suit. It almost looked pre-Michael Jackson. Miles looked like a spaceman, coming there and he said in his Miles voice ‘You don’t want to play with Chick. Fuck Chick. You don’t need to play with him. Come play with me.’ But I was very loyal and the movement we were trying to create.

“I looked at Miles and I looked at Chick and the bigger picture. I felt I could do more with Chick than Miles, although it would have been nice for the resume to play with Miles and experience that. So instead, I’d hang out with Miles and go see him a lot because we used to live near one another.”

There are any number of insights about music and life. I like this one from Bill Bruford’s interview, “Fans often have too much grinding of axes as they get older. They get grumpy about what an artist has done or has not done in terms of living up to their expectations. Once you establish yourself—particularly in North America— as being something or somebody, it can be difficult to move on. For instance, it would be very hard for a rock star like Mick Jagger to turn into John Coltrane, even if he wanted to. He will always be Mick Jagger, and I’ve had a lot of that. But I think there is a large number of people who don’t know much about us that come in off the street to get an evening of what I think is top flight music. They’re not interested in the fact the drummer once had lunch with Phil Collins.”

Like many of you, I was not familiar with many of the musicians included here. I learned quite a bit about a number of performers and certainly am going to check out some of the referenced recordings in a few chapters from these ‘new to me’ musicians, and the insights on these musicians was as valuable. That is an indication of the value this book has. “Innerviews: Music Without Borders” is a collection of conversations with significant and important musicians that will stimulate the reader. It merits the interest of serious lovers of contemporary music whose love crosses genres.


For purposes of FTC regulations, a publicist sent me a review copy of this book.