Stanley Booth Red Hot and Blue: Fifty Years of Writing About Music, …

Red Hot and Blue: Fifty Years of Writing About Music, Memphis, and Motherf**kers
Stanley Booth
2019: Chicago Review Press
400 6X9 pages.

Author of the excellent collection of blues- and jazz-related pieces, "Rythm Oil," Stanley Booth, has another compilation of mostly blues- and jazz-related pieces in this new book (In addition to chapters on such folk as Bobby Rush and Phineas Newborn Jr, there is a piece on photographer Williams Eggleston). To say Booth is opinionated is an understatement, but to give a minor sense of the flavor of his writing there is this quote from the opening article, "Blues Dues" about reading a galley about a book on blues whose publisher sought his endorsement:

"So, finally, I picked up one of the proofs to look it over. I hadn’t read far before I came upon these words: “The weekend I was in Memphis …” Unlike many before him, who’d simply bought a lot of blues records, listened to them, and written a book, this writer had made the extra effort of going to the blues museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, passing through Memphis on his way there, thus becoming an authority. I, who lived in Memphis twenty-five years, going in the course of my research to the city and county jails as a guest more times than I cared to remember, found it hard to restrain myself from hurling the galley all the way back to New York. …

There’s the blues, an emotional state, and there’s the blues, an art form, or a group of art forms. Believe me, when you’re in the Memphis jail, city or county, you got the blues. When you’re in your cozy room, listening to Robert Johnson’s plaintive tunes, you’re hearing the blues. Two different worlds. But some people, people from Berkeley, or Boston, or wherever, are so highly imaginative that they make a leap of funk and become Spokesmen of the Blues. No, really, they make a living this way. People in Dublin, London, Kyoto, Amsterdam, and Lower Slobbovia read them and feel somehow enhanced, enlightened, end manned by the blues.

I never intended to have anything to do with the blues. They came into my life through my bedroom window when I was a child. It wasn’t a matter of choice. What I learned, I paid for in experience at the school where they arrest you first and tell you why later."

There are brief portraits like the one on King Oliver (that ends "Oliver died two months later, on April 10, 1938. His sister used her rent money to bring his body north and gave up her plot in Woodlawn for him. But there is still no headstone on the grave of one of the true founding fathers of jazz.") and a lengthier one on Ma Rainey which includes a brief history of minstrel shows and development of music to the blues before chronicling her life and career and another one on Blind Willie McTell with its detailed chronicling of McTell's Library of Congress recordings and the account that McTell was allegedly paid ten dollars for the session.

There are two chapters on Furry Lewis that are based in part on the close relationship between the two and tell Furry's story and gives a glimpse about how good Booth's writing is. "Furry put the candle down and leaned back in his chair. 'When I was eighteen, nineteen years old, he said, 'I was good. And when I was twenty, I had my own band, and we could all play. Had a boy named Ham, played jug. Willie Polk played the fiddle and another boy, call him Shoefus, played the guitar, like I did. All of us North Memphis boys. We’d meet at my house and walk down Brinkley to Poplar and go up Poplar to Dunlap or maybe all the way down to Main. People would stop us on the street and say, ‘Do you know so-and-so?’ And we’d play it and they’d give us a little something. Sometimes we’d pick up fifteen or twenty dollars before we got to Beale. Wouldn’t take no streetcar. Long as you walked, you’s making money; but if you took the streetcar, you didn’t make nothing and you’d be out the nickel for the ride.'"

Then Booth describes Furry's life today. "Furry has been working for the City of Memphis Sanitation Department since 1923. Shortly after two o’clock each weekday morning, he gets out of bed, straps on his artificial leg, dresses, and makes a fresh pot of coffee, which he drinks while reading the Memphis Press-Scimitar. The newspaper arrives in the afternoon, but Furry does not open it until morning. Versie is still asleep and the paper is company for him as he sits in the kitchen under the harsh light of the ceiling bulb, drinking the hot, sweet coffee. He does not eat breakfast; when the coffee is gone, he leaves for work."

There are chapters on Elvis, one on Elvis in 1967 and one on the aftermath of his death and what happened to Elvis' Doctor who became a scapegoat for some after Elvis passed away who believed (contrary to the autopsy which said Elvis did not die of drugs) the Doctor was responsible and pictured as a pusher. A chapter on The Memphis Soul Sound takes us to The Bar-Kays funeral; Otis and Steve Cropper working on and recording "Sitting At the Dock of the Bay"; Issac Hayes and David Porter working up a song; a visit to American Studio and Donald Crews and Dan Penn; and WDIA's annual Goodwill Revue including Carla Thomas story. Booth notes that the next night after the Goodwill Revue Otis Redding and most of The Bar-Kays would be dead.
In his history of Beale Street, the chapter "Beale Street's Gone Dry," he writes, "In 1959, having graduated from Sidney Lanier High School for (white) Boys in Macon, Georgia, I moved with my family to Memphis. I knew little about the place other than that it was on the Mississippi River and had an association with the kind of music I liked. I soon learned that Memphis was, if anything, even more “Southern” and puritanical than Macon, with no liquor served by the drink and almost no integration. Restaurants, taxis, hotels, parks, libraries, movies, all were segregated. Blacks still sat in the back of the buses. Whites who wanted to hear black music went to an all-white club called the Plantation Inn across the river in West Memphis, Arkansas, and listened to a singing group called the Del Rios or to Loman Pauling and the Five Royales. My first experience on Beale Street was being thrown out of a Ray Charles concert at the Hippodrome for sharing a table with some black classmates from newly integrated Memphis State University. There were tables for blacks and tables for whites, but no mixing allowed. 'What you mean, pattin’ these nigger girls on the ass?' a cop asked me. 'I haven’t patted anybody on the ass yet, sweetheart,' I said, finding myself seconds later face-to-face with the gravel in the alley. Living in Memphis, off and on, for twenty-five years, learning the blues, I would come to know those alleys, that downtown gravel, well."

Then there is a piece he wrote about Phineas Newborn, Jr., that ended up being an obituary in the Village Voice, where he traced the Newborn family history, including the father, drummer Phineas Sr. and brother, guitarist Calvin, as well as Phineas Jr.'s life and brilliant career, not ignoring the psychological issues this piano genius experienced. "Phineas Newborn, I would learn, was to some people a living symbol of African American genius, the ultimate product of a tradition whose roots are mysterious and deep. His family life and American music were one and the same, with a cast including Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus. His style resembled that of Secretariat, or the young Muhammad Ali. He could think of things to do that no one else had ever done, and then he would do them. He had, another Memphis pianist once observed, “a boogie-woogie left hand, a bebop right hand, and this ... third hand.” But it was not simply unsurpassed technique that made his work so affecting: his music derived power from its own emotional range—the outer-space comedy of 'Salt Peanuts,' the nostalgic humor of 'Memphis Blues,' the rhapsodic sadness of 'The Midnight Sun Will Never Set,' the majesty of 'The Lord’s Prayer.'"

The article on Bobby Rush brought much about Bobby that went way beyond his musical persona, but assesses his stature as a major blues artist. "In the following account, I try to avoid invidious comparisons between Bobby Rush—it’s a stage name, and he likes it used in full—and great historical figures like B. B. King and John Lee Hooker, who have not made an exciting recording in years. Bobby Rush, in his mid-sixties, continues to make first-rate R&B records and to have the best stage show since Ike and Tina broke up. If my friend Mick Jagger were hip enough and wanted to revive his career—instead of endlessly dragging his scrawny ass around the planet regurgitating his greatest hits—he would cut Bobby Rush’s 'Jezebel.' But he’s not hip enough, nowhere near as hip as this senior citizen from Houma, Louisiana, southwest of New Orleans, within spitting distance of the Gulf of Mexico. Not Houma proper but a farm near there. Bobby Rush is the real thing, as country as a tree full of owls or a passel of possums. But he’s also at least as up to date as Kansas City."

There is a brief appreciation of Marvin Sease and extended one of his friend, the celebrated photographer William Joseph Eggleston. The closing chapter, which gives this volume its title is on legendary Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips and takes us from his heyday, through his fall and his funeral with Elvis and Priscilla there. This chapter, like practically everything in this superb collection of Stanley Booth's writing, authoritative, evocative, informative, and compelling reading.

I received a download to review from a publicist. Here is a video of Phineas Newborn.

Jerry Ricks Traveled Many Miles of Blues

There is a picture of Jerry Ricks with Mississippi John Hurt taken from a mid-sixties Philadelphia Blues Festival that was recently published in Big City Blues. It’s a picture that would not be out of place in the booklet accompanying Ricks’ second Rooster Blues album, Many Miles of Blues. The musical link to Hurt is most obvious on the nice rendition of Louis Collins Blues. The flowing guitar and vocal of the opening Missouri River Blues, a Ricks original, also captures some of the same feel found in the music of Hurt and Furry Lewis. It is Lewis to whom Ricks pays respect to on I Will Turn Your Money Green. In addition to his originals that sound like they were written decades ago such as his County Farm Blues, he transforms pianist Little Brother Montgomery’s Vicksburg Blues into a slowed down Beale Street guitar blues, while paying respects to Skip James on a deft treatment of Special Rider Blues. A traditionalist perhaps in his approach, Ricks shows he absorbed the lessons he gotten first-hand, and has moulded his own distinctive approach, evoking his mentors but in his own style. This review of Jerry Ricks appeared in the January-February 2001 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 249) which I have made some minor editing errors. Jerry Ricks unfortunately passed away (it will be five years in December 2007). A marvelous interpreter of classic country blues and a superb exponent of this tradition he is missed for his warmth, humor and wisdom as well as his music. I likely received my review copy from a publicist. This may be hard to find but well worth the effort.

Memphis Blues Party From Bukka White and Furry Lewis

Arcola Records has issued a wonderful recording by Furry Lewis, Bukka White and Friends, Party! At Home. Recorded in Memphis in July 1968, the first two selections by Bukka White were recorded at Albino Red’s, and the last three by Furry were recorded in Furry’s apartment. The majority came from a party at Furry’s Apartment and while the performances by the two blues legends are typically lively ones, they benefit from banter with friends.

What’s nice while there are familiar songs from both, there are some interesting choices. For example we get to hear White redo Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Hello Central( from the session at Albino Red's), Give Me 49, in White’s lively percussive, driving style along with White doing Drifting Blues and other numbers with Lewis adding encouragement. Lewis does a typically fine rendition of John Henry as well as Let Me Call You Sweetheart from the party as well as a fine rendition of his Kassie Jones from the other session.

As indicated, both White and Lewis sound real good here and the informality of the party setting adds to the spirit of the performances here. Recommended.

This is an older review from 2007 and originally appeared in the March-April 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 291). I purchased this CD.

Here is Bukka and then Furry.

Ben Prestage's Lively Blues and Folk Roots!

Ben Prestage comes from a family rooted in music. His great-grandmother toured with Al Jolson and in tent shows, while growing up he was exposed to the blues. He has busked in Memphis, honed his skills as a one-man band and been a finalist in the International Blues Challenge. He has a self-produced two-cd recording, Live at Pineapple Willy’s, which is in Panama City, Florida, that showcases his one-man band style, adding a small drum kit to his facile guitar.

Listening to his repertoire, one can appreciate the diversity of his repertoire that ranges from originals that are folk-styled, some acoustic rambles that are suggestive of the Grateful Dead and covers of Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, John Hurt, Furry Lewis, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters and others. Prestage is capable of a hard driving rhythmic, finger-picking style as on the impressive folk original Confusion, although on his rendition of Step It Up and Go, he does race through the song too rapidly. John Hurt’s Candyman, is a lovely rendition followed up by a nice rendition of Furry Lewis’ Casey Jones, titled here Natural-Born Easeman.

His take on John Estes Someday Baby, has some nice slide guitar in the manner of Fred McDowell punctuated by his own foot drumming, while Stuggart, Arkansas, has a driving rhythm suggestive of Bukka White and Memphis, the last song on the first CD is a nice North Mississippi Hills styled performance, with another performance in this vein being his rendition of Goin’ Down South.

The Dead’s Friend of the Devil, is a nicely done number that showcases his adept fingerstyle guitar playing. another showcase for his playing is the folk instrumental Alleghany County, followed by a country gospel number (sounds like a classic Roy Acuff song), Lost Highway. Its quirky to hear his twangy guitar revive The Meters’ They All Asked For You, titled here, Audubon Blues. He does a nice take on Muddy Waters’ Can’t Be Satisfied, which shows his restrained slide being very effective.

I would not call him a great blues singer, but he does a credible job on the material here. Perhaps, he is moslty effective on the folk and country numbers and he is a fine guitarist. Even if a few numbers are clinkers, there is much to be enjoyed on this. His website is http://www.benprestagemusic.com, and there is a link to this and other CDs there.

This review originally appeared in the October15 - December 1, 2009 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 321) and I believe I received my review copy from the publication.

I Blueskvarter made Blues History Available

The following was a review of the 3rd double CD in a series that an offshoot of the Swedish blues magazine, Jefferson, released in the earlier part of this decade. The review below was written in 2004 and may have appeared in Jazz & Blues Report. I purchased this recording.

The Scandinavian Blues Association has issued on its Jefferson Records, I Blueskvarter * 1964, Volume Three. This is the third double disc volume in the series which makes available recordings that the Swedish Broadcasting Company made in Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans in 1964 that was broadcast in autumn 1964. The first two volumes were devoted to recordings from Chicago and included recordings by such legendary figures as Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery, Johnny Young, Walter Horton, Willie Mabon, Johnny Young, Washboard Sam and Paul Butterfield (on what were Butterfield's first recordings). This volume includes New Orleans recordings by Snooks Eaglin and Babe Stovall and Memphis recordings by Johnny Moment, Will Shade, Furry Lewis, Earl Bell and Moose Williams with the second disc containing extra recordings from Mabon, Sunnyland Slim, Walter Horton, and Johnny Young among others before concluding with three 1961 recordings by Big Joe Williams and then from Champion Jack Dupree recorded in performance and conversation in Sweden. This is a varied set of music opening with Snooks Eaglin performing ten numbers in a vein similar to his early recordings as a 'street singer' although the opening Yours Truly, a Pee Wee Crayton song he had recorded for Imperial as a R&B artist. Few could pull off PInetop's Boogie Woogie on guitar like Snooks can and other songs he provides his unique skills to include My Babe, Let Me Go Home Whisky, and Hello Dolly. Babe Stovall, who also was resident in New Orleans presents some more down home blues on his four songs that includes renditions of Candy Man and Gonna Move to Kansas City. The first Memphis selections are by harmonica Johnny Moment, whose rendition of Keep Our Business to Yourself, is heavily indebted to Rice 'Sonny Boy Williamson II' Miller. He also backs legendary jug band musician Will Shade on a slow I Got the Blues So Bad, Furry lewis has sounded better than on Baby, I Know You Don't Love Me, which does have moments of nice slide guitar. Traditional Mississippi blues are represented by one Earl Bell who does a competent cover Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues. The selections from Chicago supplement recordings by these artists that are on the first two volumes in this series. Willie Mabon delivers a strong Somebody's Got to Pay, while piano blues are also represented by Sunnyland Slim on Leroy Carr's Prison Bound and Little Brother Montgomery who reprises his immortal Vicksburg Blues. Walter Horton, accompanied by Robert Nighthawk on guitar is heard on three numbers including a nicely delivered Tin Pan Alley. Two early recordings by Paul Butterfield with Smokey Smothers on guitar include One Room Country Shack, while Johnny Young is backed by Slim Willis on harp and Otis Spann on piano for You Got Bad Blood, I Think You Need a Shot. The Joe Williams performances are typically fine and are followed by a Swedish broadcast of Dupree and Olie Helander in which Dupree recalls growing up, his big influence and other matters along with a rendition of his Drive 'em Down Special, as well as Leroy Carr's Barrelhouse Woman. In addition to being a great pianist, Dupree was a marvelous conversationalist. As with the first two volumes, there are copious notes that discuss the artists and how the recordings were made. This is an invaluable addition to the body of downhome blues of this time. This is an important musical document and contains some very strong performances by artists who have mostly passed away. The Swedish Blues Alliance is to be thanked for the over six hours of vintage blues music that they have made available in this series. You probably can only obtain these by mail order, and I would suggest contacting either Bluebeat Music at www.bluebeatmusic.com or Triangle Music at www.triangle-music.com for information on obtaining these. Its too bad that Olie Helander only did a radio documentary of the blues forty years ago, because the musical legacy of this radio series stands tall compared to the recent over-hyped Martin Scorcese PBS series on the blues.

Bluebeat Music shows the three volumes of this series as still available.

Franklin & Baytop "Searching For Frank"

while Rick Franklin and Mike Baytop are two of the most accomplished acoustic blues artists in the Washington DC area. Franklin has been a staple of the area’s acoustic scene for over two decades including a lengthy partnership with Neil Harpe. Baytop was mentored by the late Archie Edwards and became President of the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation that still operates out of Archie’s Barbershop, holding the weekly jam sessions that Archie had hosted along with workshops and concerts. He has recorded with DC native Mike Roach on harmonica and recently with projects associated with the Foundation. He has also grown as a guitarist and also plays bones, guitar and mandolin. Franklin & Baytop have partnered for a new disc, Searching For Frank for Patuxent Records, which takes its name from legendary Memphis Bluesman Frank Stokes whose twenties and thirties recordings for Victor and other labels in the company of Dan Sane and others were amongst the finest recordings of the pre-World War 11 era with the intricate interplay between the two and Stokes strongly delivered vocals. The album contains fourteen performances, several directly taken from recordings of Stokes and his associates but transformed so its no simple cover. Their intent was to evoke those classic duo recordings, but not to simply replicate the originals. Furthermore, several tracks have Baytop on harp and/or bones, so while all tracks are duos, not all are guitar duos. They make the music their own as Nobody’s Business transforms the Memphis references of Stokes’ Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do to Washington DC, as well as updates Stokes’ You Shall as You Shall Be Free, a tune that likely came out of the minstrel tradition. Other material includes Blind Blake’s Champagne Charlie, Pink Anderson’s I Got Mine, an adaptation of Furry Lewis’ Judge Harsh Blues (Jail House Blues) and the Mississippi Sheiks’ Stop and Listen Blues. The two play wonderfully and its delightful to hear Memphis in the twenties evoked. While neither are great singers, they both deliver their vocals in unforced, husky, good-natured styles. One can hear in these performances how much they enjoy playing this material and they do not sound like they are too studied or reverent with respect to the material which increases the pleasure of this disc. Also, they avoid over-recorded early blues recordings so thankfully we are spared second rate Robert Johnson covers This release is available from the Patuxent Records website at www.pxrec.com or email Rick Franklin at rick.franklin@onebox.com for information on how to purchase this.