Joe “Guitar” Hughes' Stuff Like That

Joe “Guitar” Hughes
Stuff Like That
Blues Express BEI-0002-1

Stuff Like That/ A Blues Song/ Ouchie Baby/ My Baby Told Me/ Pit Bull/ Going to San Francisco/ Bad Dreams/ When a Man Loves a Woman/ If You Want to See the Blues/ Bonus Track - Interview with Joe. 56:25.

Hughes, g, v; Bobby Murray, g; Leonard Gill, b; Tim Brockett, org; Dave Matthews, kybds; Tony Coleman, d; George Brooks; s; Mic Gillette, tbn, Marvin McFadden, tpt. San Francisco CA.

Part of Houston’s vibrant blues scene of the past five decades, Joe Hughes may not be as celebrated as his good friend, the late Johnny Copeland. This fact that hopefully will change with the release of "Stuff Like That" on Blues Express. Hughes played around the various Houston clubs, toured with a variety of R&B giants, and spent some time as a session musician for Duke before he decided he wanted to stay at home rather than deal with the road life. A trip to Europe with Copeland helped reinvigorate his career and this is the latest of several albums he has recorded, the first this reviewer has heard.

It is a terrific live recording with a brassy band backing up Hughes strong, jazzy guitar leads and smooth, soulful singing that is reminiscent of the legendary Junior Parker. There is variety in material that is performed at a high level. “My Baby Told Me” is a solid slow blues about his woman telling him not to do as she does, but do as she tell him to do so that they are making love she get exactly what she wants. Melodically, it is suggestive of “Going to Chicago” and there is some call and response between the guitars of Hughes and Bobby Murray. An instrumental version of “When A Man Loves A Woman” is nicely delivered. Hughes other originals are fresh lyrically, his musicianship exemplary and the band is wonderful specially given the fact that they avoid playing classic blues tunes. This strong release makes one why Hughes’ name is not better known among blues fans.

This review was written for Cadence Magazine and appeared there in 2002. I likely received a review copy from the publication. Below is a video of him performing from a DVD "Texas Bluesman." Both "Stuff Like That"and "Texas Bluesman" are still available.

Trudy Lynn - Royal Oaks Blues Café

Has it really been over seven years since Trudy Lynn had a new recording out. Connor Ray Music issued Royal Oaks Blues Café, her first recordings since she recorded I’m Still Here (Sawdust Alley 2006) with the late Calvin Owens and his Blues Orchestra. The Houston based Lynn was among a number of artists who first came to folks attention on the Ichiban label and then for Ruf, Jus Blues and Sawdust Alley before this new recording.

The album cover bills this as Trudy Lynn featuring Steve Krase, and Krase’s harmonica is featured throughout. The studio band on most of this is guitarist John Del Toro Richardson, pianist Randy Wall, bassist Eugene ‘Spare Time’ Murray, and drummer Carl Owens. Its a solid small combo that contrasts with the Owens Blues Orchestra that supported her on her last album, and while the backing lends some difference in the mood perhaps, Trudy Lynn comes off as sassy and powerful as before.

She certainly benefits from a good mix of material from her strong rendition of the Jay McShann-Walter Brown blues standard Confessin’ The Blues, on which Krase and Richardson impress with their strong playing behind Lynn whose vocals display a clarity in phrasing and an expressive range (from a whisper to a shout). Wall’s piano kicks off the cover of a Bobby Bland recording, Play the Honky Tonks. Street Walkin’ Daddy benefits from the laid back backing with Richardson evoking the likes of Clarence Holliman and Pete Mayes behind Lynn’s soulful vocal. The tempo is boosted a few notches on the jump blues Red Light, while Lynn caresses the lyric of I’m Gonna Put You Down (“Did you ever wake up in the morning with your mind running two different ways”). Then she changes her attack for the jubilant celebration of Beale Street and the blues on the rollicking shuffle Down in Memphis.

There is fine Richardson guitar on the relaxed Effervescent Daddy with a choice harmonica solo as well. The closing Whip it To A Jelly further displays how nuanced a singer Lynn is as she brings out humor and wit of Clara Smith’s lyrics, Many blue singers today would come across as emotive or heavy-handed singing this. Her ability to convincingly deliver so many shades of blues makes Royal Oaks Blues Café such a terrific recording.

I purchased this. Here is a short video of the making of Royal Oaks Blues Café.

Milton Hopkins and Jewel Brown Have The Houston Blues

A new release on the Texas Dialtone label is the eponymously titled released by guitarist Milton Hopkins and vocalist Jewel Brown. Hopkins, a cousin of Lightnin’ Hopkins, is a fleet guitarist with a clean tone and jazzy attack that is in the same vein as fellow Houstonians Texas Johnny Brown and the late Clarence Hollimon. He was in fact second guitarist for B.B. King from around 1971 to 1980. Brown made one recording for Don Robey’s Duke label, later moving out to the West Coast and spent a number of years in the 1960s performing with Louis Armstrong. after retiring from music for a number of years, she has returned to performing a few years back.

Producer Eddie Stout put together a solid band to back the two including Mike Keller on rhythm guitar; Corey Keller or Jason Moeller on drums; Nick Connolly on piano, Johnny Bradley on bass and Kaz Kazanoff on saxophones. They provide solid, swinging backing behind Brown’s vocals and Hopkins’ imaginative single note fretwork. Material is pretty straight-forward with the least familiar material perhaps having the biggest impact.

The opening Jerry is a nice uptempo number, while Can’t Get Enough Of You is a slow blues which she delivers with much feeling. While the years may have taken a toll on her range and vocal tone, on such material she shines while Hopkins lays in some stinging guitar fills behind her vocal. She also capably covers Ruth Brown’s hit, Daddy Daddy, and the band sparkles in accompanying her with Hopkins shining on his solo. It is followed by a surprising cover of J.B. Lenoir’s retelling of the Jonah story, The Whale Has Swallowed Me, with Hopkins on acoustic guitar. It is followed by jazzy instrumental showcase for Hopkins, Evening Breeze, that mixes flair and restraint.

There’s a Light is a nice gospel performance but followed by a decent, but hardly remarkable cover of Esther Phillips’ Cry Me A River, with the arrangement based on the one King Curtis engrafted behind Esther Phillips’s live performance (on Esther’s terrific “Burnin’ album) but Brown’s vocal certainly does not approach that of Phillips, nor is the band on the level of Phillips’ trio that was augmented by Curtis in the studio. Hopkins does take a couple nice guitar breaks, but overall a weak performance. Brown does better with her a cover of Little Willie John’s I’m Shakin’.

Another Hopkins’ instrumental, Back To The Shimmy, has a New Orleans flavor and has Hopkins’ playing off Kazanoff’s tenor sax. Another acoustic performance is the rendition of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “I’m Leaving You Now,” as Milton channels his cousin’s guitar style, although Brown’s vocal sounds harsh at spots. After the rollicking gospel of How Can I Lose, the album closes with a jaunty instrumental Texas shuffle, Tater Tots.

The collaboration between Milton Hopkins and Jewel Brown is a mixed affair. Hopkins is among the last of the blues guitarists still playing in this sophisticated, jazz-tinged approach and he is terrific throughout. One wonders how much the years have affected Brown’s voice and she is uneven here. Several performances are very good, but others are relatively lackluster. While there are some faults here, overall the merits outweigh them.

I purchased this CD. Here is a short video clip of the two.

RIP Walter Price - Remembering The Thunderbird

Word has came that on Tuesday March 6, Houston blues and rhythm pianist and vocalist Big Walter "The Thunderbird" Price passed away reportedly at the age of 97. The Houston Chronicle in its brief obituary reported "Believed to be the last blues singer from the storied Peacock label, Big Walter the Thunderbird was 97. Though his birth certificate put him at three years younger, he maintained the disparity was a paperwork error." Interestingly in a letter to Mike Leadbitter in which he told his story (published originally in Blues Unlimited and then in the book Nothin' But The Blues, Price stated "I was born Walter Travis Price on August 2, 1917, in Gonzales, Texas." I assume he later discovered the paperwork error.

Price started recording in the mid-fifties for T.N.T. records and then later for Don Robey's Peacock label on which he waxed what were some of his best known recordings including Shirley Jean and Pack Four and Square. Members of Little Richard's backing band, The Upsetters, backed him on several of these recordings according to the February, 1965 Blues Unlimited article. He also recorded for Goldband among other labels and ran his own label Sunshine as well as a record store and cafe.  The Jay Geils Band covered Pack Four and Square, in the 1970's.

At the time he wrote Leadbitter, he also sent a tape of some then unissued recordings. A couple, Nothing But the Blues (If Blues Was Money), and My Tears, were issued initially on a Flyright album, Houston Ghetto Blues along with selections by Juke Boy Bonner and Hop Wilson. My Tears was an especially strong performance with a great vocal and Albert Collins takes us "all the way to London," with a blistering solo, but Price's vocal shows how strong a singer he was. Collins himself later covered a recording Price made for Huey Meaux, Get To Gittin'.

Price carried on a variety of other activities over the years including being a radio deejay, worked in a strip club but most importantly, he never stopped performing. His last recordings likely were for the fine 2006 Dialtone label's Texas Southside Kings. He had been in a nursing home in recent years.

The Houston Chronicle obituary quoted Price from a Living Blues interview with Houston music historian Roger Wood, "You can't classify me as a blues singer exclusively. The only thing, when you classify yourself as a blues singer, you're putting a label on yourself. You can't label me. I'm an artist. … I play Western music. Blues, ballads, country, I'm across the board."

For a fuller obituary on Price, check out the Houston Press' website.

Trudy Lynn Is Still Here

Trudy Lynn got notice with her marvelous soulful blues recordings on the Icihban label but since that label’s demise her recordings have been less frequent. She appeared on some of trumpeter-bandleader Calvin Owens project, had a CD on Ruf, but her new album on Owens’ Sawdust Alley Records, proclaims I’m Still Here. With a variety of guests including clarinetist Michael White, guitarists Guitar Shorty and Clarence Holliman and zydeco accordionist, Jabo, this disc is compiled from sessions over several years.

Against Owens Big Band backing Lynn displays why she is such a highly regarded vocalist. She has a powerful voice but convinces with her command as a singer who can handle a soft ballad as she can blast out a jumping number. She certainly ranks at the top of any list of contemporary women blues vocalists. Unfortunately too much of the material here consists of generic blues songs about swinging or Trudy being a Blues Singing Woman. The material is not as strong as the authority which with Lynn invests her performances.

Lynn’s own song, which provides the album with its title, is stronger as she reflects on her life as a performer and a blues singer and her struggle to keep carrying on. Hands Off My Woman is one of two vocals by trumpeter Nelson Mills. It is an OK number but this is this is Trudy’s album and why do I want to here some gentleman singing about his woman is his property even if he loves her. Saturday Night is an instrumental where Owens takes his only solo here and Michael White is also featured.

Since I Found You is one of the better songs here, a soul-ballad whose lyric matches Lynn’s vocal. Another good number is Left Me Singin’ the Blues about a man who left her with Charles Davis contributing a nice solo. A bit of big band zydeco can be head on Boogie Woogie Gumbo, another instrumental with a striking solo by the late Clarence Holliman and accordion from Jabo. A real nice track but again, this is Trudy’s album ,and its unfortunate that they did not have a selection of Holliman playing behind Trudy. You’re the Only One is a wonderfully sung love song, while Welcome Home Baby, has a nice lyric of getting past what happened in past while the closing Payin’ the Price has a somewhat quicker tempo for a solid soul-blues performance.

Trudy Lynn is well worth listening to even on lesser material as she has one of those voices and she is one of those singers that could make a phone book a swinging affair.

I believe this is the last album that has been released under Trudy’s name. This review appeared originally in theNovember 2006 DC Blues Calendar, then the newsletter of the DC Blues Society. I received my review copy from either the record company or a publicist handling the release. Here is a video of Trudy doing a well known blues chestnut.