How Long How Long Blues

One of the most celebrated blues recording is " How Long How Long Blues," most famous from Leroy Carr's recording. It was so popular, Carr recorded a number of sequels. Today, we explore a variety of recordings and performances of this number starting with Carr's hit.

It derives somewhat from Ida Cox's "How Long Daddy" by the great Ida Cox with Papa Charlie Jackson on the accompaniment.

Here is T-Bone Walker doing this classic.

Jimmy Yancey may be my favorite blues and boogie-woogie pianist. Here is his poetical version.

Count Basie with Jimmy Rushing singing.

Here is one by Big Joe Turner, who recorded the song several times.

The great slide guitar master, Kokomo Arnold, an influence on Robert Johnson, recorded this.

The late Lou Rawls did a marvelous rendition.

Last up for this playlist is Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Leadbelly.

There are many I could have selected, but this gives an idea of the range of interpretations.

A few thoughts on the Blues Hall of Fame

One of my friends, who may be on the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame Committee, inquired about my suggestions of folks to be considered for the Hall. I provided him with a number of names. The names I submitted included Roy and Grady Gaines (who are both still with us), the Boogie Woogie Trio of Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis and their mentor Jimmy Yancey, the great Esther Phillips and Duke Robillard. I also suggested as Classics of Blues Recordings the compilations that accompanied Sam Charters "The Country Blues," Paul Oliver's "Blues Fell This Morning and the Origin Jazz Library "Really the Country Blues," and a number of the early Yazoo vinyl albums.

 Albert Ammons & Pete Johnson

The artists selected for induction were announced Sunday by the Foundation and include: Mavis Staples, Magic Slim, Johnny Copeland, Henry Gray, Latimore and Willie Johnson. For Classics of Blues Recordings albums they choose John Lee Hooker, The Real Folk Blues (Chess). I do find these artists deserving although I do not believe any of these artists are more deserving than the ones I had suggested. 

I am pleased for the Texas Twister, Johnny Copeland, a singular performer that was always adding new elements to his music.  Magic Slim was one of the biggest and most reliable acts on the blues circuit of the past forty odd years. I was surprised of the selection of Latimore, although pleased that someone in the soul-blues world was honored. Henry Gray has been a solid pianist and vocalist in the over forty years since he moved back to Louisiana, not to mention his tenure with Howling Wolf. Willie Johnson was a major player on Wolf's early recordings (but how can you pick him and also not pick Roy Gaines, who did session work for Duke (with Bobby Bland I believe); Chuck Willis (he was also Willis' band leader); Jimmy Rushing and many more, as well as numerous outstanding recordings on his own, several of which were award-winning ones). 

Johnny Copeland doing "Devil's Hand" in 1984

To my mind, the only questionable selection of a performer is that of Mavis Staples, whose iconic status as a performer is well acknowledged, but one whose performances and recordings are outside the blues. The press-release announcing the selections acknowledges this, stating that she "one of America’s premier singers of gospel and soul music, has expanded her musical mastery with her performances in more blues-based settings in recent years." Performances being in a blues-based setting is not, to me, a strong rationale to induct a non-blues artist, as wonderful as she is, to a Blues Hall of Fame. I understand the rationale, I do not agree with it. 

A few other observations about this year's selections. Once again, with the exception of Son House's "Preaching the Blues" as a classic single, pre-war blues artists and recordings were generally ignored. Also the one album selected, John Lee Hooker, The Real Folk Blues, is not, in my estimation, one of the more important albums of Hooker's music. 

Of course this represents my opinion, but one resulting from following and listening to blues for a half century.

A few Blues thoughts for the day

Thoughts for the day.

Not one member of the Boogie Woogie Trio (Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis or Pete Johnson) is in the Blues Hall of Fame. The greatest boogie woogie pianists of all time. Here is Boogie Woogie Prayer.

I also add their mentor Jimmy Yancey is also not in nor is the great Cow Cow Davenport. Look at who has been recently inducted but these folk are not in.  Here is Davenport, not doing the eponymously named boogie, but Texas Shout.

And here is Jimmy Yancey's almost poetical rendition of How Long Blues.

 More on acts that should be in the Blues Hall of Fame in future posts. Look up these folks on google and give their music a listen on the net.

Willie Dixon's cliche "The Blues is the roots and everything else is the fruits" may have had some truth when he made it, but today so much of what is marketed as blues is the fruits as much as anything. When Dixon made the comment so many musical acts were redoing blues songs (country acts covered Jimmy Reed) and even the genius that was Gil Evans would rework a Dixon song like he does with Spoonful.

Or Jimmy Smith cover Muddy Waters' hit Got My Mojo Workin'.

How Long How Long Blues

Today's blog is devoted to simply presenting a number of renditions of a song most associated with Leroy Carr, How Long, How Long Blues. This was a major hot for Carr and became one of the true blues classics.

First up is Carr's original recording

Second is Tampa Red although I wish we just had the music, not the video and audio of a 78 playing.

Ida Cox's How Long Daddy speaks about that southbound train. It predates Carr's recording. Cox was one of the early blues greatest talents.

Kokomo Arnold also did a terrific rendition of this

Let us not forget some superb instrumental piano renditions including Count Basie

And no instrumemntal rendition touches me as much as that by the great Jimmy Yancey.

A year before he died, Jimmy Yancey did this with Mama Yancey singing wonderfully

Carr' song was a favorite of blues shouters like Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Joe Turner. Here is the Boss of the Blues singing it from the essential album The Boss of the Blues Sings Kansas City Jazz.

Other singer-pianists have done including Memphis Slim and Champion Jack Dupree. I have included Dupree's rendition from 1945.

It has been a song that jazz performers have interpreted such as Coleman Hawkins. There is a superb duet performance by Archie Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan on the terrific album Trouble in Mind. Here is Coleman Hawkins.

Among recent blues renditions, I consider the best to be from pianist Butch Thompson and guitarist Pat Donohue. Here is Thompson channeling Jimmy Yancey as I close this blog post.

A Box Set Treasure of Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano

While it is not clear where the style of piano called Boogie Woogie originated, by 1928 it had clearly surfaced in Chicago where it was named by a recording Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie, by Clarence ‘Pinetop’ Smith. As Dan Morganstern writes in the booklet accompanying the new Mosaic Selects set, Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano, boogie woogie was a piano idiom rooted in the blues, “a rolling, romping an infectious approach to the keyboard … . Its chief characteristic is a forceful, repetitive (but by no mans unvaried) ‘walking’ bass line pitted against a blues melody line in the treble marked by cross rhythms, usually (but not always) at a fast tempo.” The Mosaic Selects 3-disc set collects 72 of the finest recordings in this idiom from the idiom’s peak period of popularity in the late thirties and early forties from recordings originally on such labels as Victor, OK, ARC, Columbia, Bluebird and Vocalion and includes such masters of the style as Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Jimmy Yancey and Cripple Clarence Lofton along with recordings by others including Harry James, Joe Sullivan, Benny Carter, and Red Allen. 

A thunderous boogie played with ‘"A Left Hand From God” (to cite the title of Peter Silvester's history of boogie woogie), can be heard from the opening moments as we are introduced to Meade Lux Lewis’ revival of his Honky Tonk Train Blues, one of the classic piano and train instrumentals of all time. Its followed by a couple more efforts by Lewis as well as fellow Chicagoan, Albert Ammons with two takes of his dazzling tour de force, Shout For Joy. In turn this is followed by the great Kansas City pianist, Pete Johnson accompanying the great shouter Joe Turner on Roll ‘Em Pete. These recordings, along with the appearance of the trio at the legendary Carnegie Hall concert, From Spirituals to Swing, helped launch boogie woogie into a National craze. As part of this craze, the Boogie Woogie Trio (Ammons, Lohnson and Lewis) along with Turner were booked into Cafe Society, the legendary Greenwich Village Club. The trio recorded the spectacular Boogie Woogie Prayer together, and were joined by trumpeter Harry James for several recordings. The first of the three discs concludes with eight heart pounding duets between Johnson and Ammons. 

The second of the discs is a bit more varied with some focus shifted to vocalist Turner who fronts Pete Johnson and His Boogie Woogie Boys that included trumpeter Hot Lips Page and alto saxophonist Buster Smith on Cherry Red and Baby Look at You. Then Turner shouts in front of Ammons, Johnson and Lewis on Cafe Society Rag, before singing in front of combos led by pianist Joe Sullivan and Benny Carter. After this, we are presented with three distinct takes of Down The Road A-Piece by the Will Bradley Trio with pianist Freddie Slack. This became a staple of piano led combos in the post-World War II period. Selections by Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton and Red Allen illustrate the spread of boogie woogie as it became a national fad (this set limits itself to small combos and does not include examples of the big band variations).

The final disc opens with a piano solo by Mary Lou Williams before presenting us with 17 tracks by the great Jimmy Yancey, one of the greatest blues and boogie pianists of all time. A former baseball player in the Negro Leagues, he was a groundskeeper at Comiskey Park as well as a pianist of great emotional depth and rhythmic vitality. His music eschewed flash for a lyrical, almost poetic quality with what Morganstern notes idiosyncratic harmonies although all of his numbers ends in the key of E. His boogies are not played at quite a breakneck as Ammons, Johnson or Lewis were capable of but his treble lines are perhaps more interesting and while his bass work is varied and propulsive if not as powerful as the others as can be heard on Yancey’s Stomp. Slow blues like Five O'Clock Blues were his forte as his subtle touch and treble embellishments lend a melancholy flavor to his performances. His poetic piano perhaps is stronger than his unmannered vocals, but his earnest delivery compensates for any vocal limitations, and one will not find any better examples of blues piano than his work here. Five tracks by Clarence Lofton, with Big Bill Broonzy on guitar, close this collection with touches of ragtime mixed in with boogie as on Strut That Thing, which echoes Speckled Red’s classic Dirty Dozens, and lyrics that would be echoed by Little Johnny Jones a decade later, with Lofton raggy boogie bass and while beating of his right hand lines. Also included is the marvelous Brown Skin Gal, which more great piano and lyrics and a commanding singing. 

Long-time collectors have many of these recordings, but some of the reissues of this material on the have been out-of-print for a number of years. Mosaic Select has put together this strong collection of music that belongs in any credible collection of blues and boogie woogie piano. Dan Morganstern’s essay also provides the historical context mixed with insights on the recordings and performers. Available from www.mosaicrecords.com.

This review appeared originally in the February 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 301), although I have made some edits. I do not recall if I received a review copy or purchased this. If you are thinking of a gift for the blues piano lover in your Holiday Gift List, this is still available from Mosaic, http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=MS-030. Now here is a video of Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson.

Marvelous Reissue of Albums By George Lewis and Jimmy Yancey albums

One of the unexpected pleasures of the recent Sony Box set celebrating 50 years of Preservation Hall was the inclusion of some selections from a series of albums issued on Atlantic shortly after that fabled venue opened. It led to my checking into the availability of these albums. They have been issued on the Collectables label in a series of two albums on one CD. One CD, includes an album by a band led by The George Lewis Band of New Orleans, Jazz at Preservation Hall, reissued with an album Pure Blues, by legendary blues and boogie pianist Jimmy Yancey. Included are the original liner notes by Rev. A.L. Kershaw for Lewis and Ralph Gleason, George Hoefer and Art Hodes for the Yancey (with Hodes personal memories being quite moving).

The George Lewis Band of New Orleans included Kid Howard on trumpet; Jim Robinson on trombone; Alcide ‘Slow Drag’ Pavageau on bass; Emmanuel Sayles on banjo; and Joe Watkins on drums. On a few tracks the personnel include Snookum Russell on pianol “Papa John’ Joseph on bass; and Joe Watkins on drums. Lewis is amongst the greatest clarinetists of New Orleans jazz with his simple, blues-drenched style and he also was recorded extensively. This album of his is amongst the best recorded and contains a number of staples of his repertoire including Salutation March, Down By the Riverside, Careless Love, Burgundy Blues and St. Louis Blues along an amiable version of Jelly Roll Morton’s Winin’ Boy Blues. The selections with a full group are marvelous with the interplay between Lewis’ clarinet, Howard’s trumpet and Robinson’s tailgate trombone. Then there is Burgundy Blues, with the other horns sitting out on what is perhaps Lewis’ most celebrated number. The spare backing helps contribute to the melancholic tone of a stunning blues performance. This is amongst the best sounding as well as best recordings of George Lewis that I have heard.

Jimmy Yancey was a ground keeper for the Chicago White Sox (during World War I he played in the Negro Leagues) and also one of the greatest blues and woogie woogie pianists that one might fine playing rent and house parties in Chicago. He was a pioneer in the boogie woogie idiom and an influence on Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. Atlantic recorded Yancey and his wife Mama Estelle Yancey in 1951 a few months before he passed away. These would be his last recordings although he had been recorded by Jazz Information, Solo Art , Session, Victor and Vocalion. 

One aspect of these performances, on which bassist Israel Crosby lends a light touch, is the focus on slow blues instrumentals (and accompaniments), while his earlier recordings had more in the nature of stomps and boogie woogies marked by his immediately recognizable touch and endings. Yancey’s Bugle Call comes closest to illustrate this aspect of his music, but much of this focus on on his atmospheric slow blues like on Mournful Blues or the musical poetry of his rendition of Leroy Carr’s How Long How Long Blues. The spare left-hand bass supplements the treble runs which focus on feeling and not flash. This same mood is present for another version of this heard here on which Mama Yancey so movingly sings. It is one of five vocals by Mama Yancey heard here which also include her take on the traditional, Make Me a Pallet On The Floor, again with Jimmy Yancey’s simple, moody backing. These vocals, like Yancey’s instrumental performances, are blues performances of the highest order and like the Lewis album would be easy to recommend if they had been issued separately. To have these combined on one release makes this album even easier to recommend.

I purchased this. Here is a video from 1962 of George Lewis performing.

Solo Art's Prime Boogie Woogie & Blues Piano

At the tail end of 2009, I posted a review of a Delmark collection “Boogie Woogie Kings,” that was anthology collecting some vintage blues and boogie woogie piano. More recently I purchased from www.jazzology.com a variety of traditional jazz CDs along with one devoted to boogie woogie and blues piano, “The Solo Art Story -— Vol. 1 Piano Blues & Boogie Woogie 1938-1939” (Solo Art). This compilation brings together recordings that were made for the Solo Art label in the late 1930s when a Brooklyn bartender and record collector, Don Qualey, started the label devoted to piano solos. Right after John Hammond had presented the legendary “Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall, Qualey took the legendary Boogie Woogie Trio, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis into the studio. Furthermore, through Lewis Qualey located Jimmy Yancey and, after being located, Yancey made his initial recordings for Solo Art. Qualey would also record two other artists, Cripple Clarence Lofton, and the Russian born Art Hodes, George Buck acquired the rights to the original Solo Art label and its recordings. Buck reactivated Solo Art as a label to primarily reissue solo piano jazz and blues, as part of the labels he operates through the George H. Buck Jr. Jazz Foundation.

“The Solo Art Story - Vol. 1 Piano Blues & Boogie Woogie 1938-1939” has some overlap of artists with the Delmark release “Boogie Woogie Kings,” with performances by Johnson, Ammons, Lewis and Lofton along with performances by Hides and Yancey. It opens with five performances from Johnson with the opening “Climbin’ and Screamin’,” being a typical Johnson boogie woogie full of his driving left hand and right hand embellishments, while “Pete’s Blues,” is a marvelous late night blues followed by “B&O Blues,” a middle tempo rolling boogie. Two tracks from Hodes follow including the evocative “South Side Shuffle.” “Mecca Flat Blues” by Albert Ammons features his left hand bass and strutting right hand while “Boogie Woogie,” is a reworking of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie,” with a bit less of the ragtime flavor but certainly one of the best later renditions of this boogie standard. The three selections from Lewis include a relaxed “Messin’ Around,” along with the jaunty “Deep Fives,” which exhibits some stride roots in Lewis. The two solos built upon “How Long Blues,” by Jimmy Yancey are the Mount Everest on a collection of piano blues and boogie woogie that is like visiting the Himalayan Mountainss of this form. Yancey’s blues and boogie piano is musical poetry. And this is followed by six stunning solos from Cripple Clarence Lofton including a fully instrumental rendition of “Streamline Train,” his own take on “Cow Cow Blues.”

There is a Volume 2 that contains more by these artists and a disc devoted to Jimmy Yancey that the modern Solo Art label has reissued. This is one of those boogie woogie and blues piano collections that merits being called essential. It is available from jazzology.com, and also the Louisiana Music factory (www.louisianamusicfactory.com).

A personal list of Ten Great Blues Pianists

I will not claim this is an exhaustive list but any collection of blues piano (and blues) should have something by all these acts.

Cow Cow Davenport - One could have selected his contemporaries like that tragic Pinetop Smith or the pioneering brothers of Sippie Wallace, George Washington Thomas and Hersal Thomas, but Charles Davenport came out of vaudeville (like Smith) and fortunately recorded extensively including his signature piece, “Cow Cow Blues” as well as such other gems as “Texas Shout” and “Atlanta Rag.” Document issued his complete recordings which included some strong accompaniments.

Eurreal ‘Little Brother’ Montgomery’s career spanned several decades and included his definitive reading of the “Forty Four Blues Theme, “Vicksburg Blues” along with “No Special Rider Blues, that in 1930 started a lengthy recording career that included him playing in territory bands and continuing his distinctive style that included elements of ragtime and stride. Other early classics he recorded include the virtuoso “Farish Street Jive.”

Roosevelt Sykes gets my nod as the greatest of all blues pianists. Lee Green taught Sykes a lot and he began a lengthy recording career that continued until his passing while holding down a regular gig in New Orleans. With his boisterous vocal style one can imagine how he jumped the crowds at the barrelhouses, juke joints and other clubs. He is associated with “Honey Dripper Blues,” “Mistake in Life,” Driving Wheel,” “Sunny Road,” and his “Sweet Old Chicago,” derived as much from “Original Kokomo Blues” as “Sweet Home Chicago,” inspired Junior Parker and Magic Sam to revive “Sweet Home Chicago.” Of course he did his own definitive rendition of “Forty Four Blues.” He was equally superb solo and in small jump blues combos. One of my favorite Delmark albums is his “Feel Like Blowing My Horn,” with his friend Robert Lockwood Junior and others.

Charlie Spand. I select him in lieu of Leroy Carr because Spand is less well known but such a marvelous pianist. Francis Smith in his definitive series on Piano Blues on Magpie devoted an entire volume to Spand whose “Soon This Morning,” is every bit a blues standard (Junior Wells and Sonny Boy do it as “Early in the Morning”). Other classics include some stomping piano with Blind Blake on guitar for “Hastings St,” while “Mississippi Blues" displays his fluent style.

Pete Johnson. I limit myself to only one of the Boogie Woogie Trio. I won’t argue that Johnson is better than Meade Lux Lewis or Albert Ammons. Perhaps it is his association with Joe Turner (who did record with the other two). Johnson can be heard on many of Turner’s tracks including his early “Roll ‘Em Pete,” and the Atlantic “Boss of the Blues” album.

Jimmy Yancey - In a review of the superb Mosaic Select box set, “Boogie Woogie and Blues Piano,” that appeared in the March 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 301) I wrote the following about him, "A former baseball player in the Negro Leagues, he was a groundskeeper at Comiskey Park as well as a pianist of great emotional depth and rhythmic vitality. His music eschewed flash for a lyrical, almost poetic quality with what Morganstern notes idiosyncratic harmonies although every of his numbers ends in the key of E. His boogies are not played at quite a breakneck as Ammons, Johnson or Lewis were capable of but his treble lines are perhaps more interesting and while his bass work is varied and propulsive if not as powerful as the others as can be heard on ‘Yancey’s Stomp.’ Slow blues like ‘Five O'clock Blues’ were his forte as his subtle touch and treble embellishments lend a melancholy flavor to his performances. His poetic piano perhaps is stronger than his unmannered vocals, but his earnest delivery compensates for any vocal limitations, and one will not find any better examples of blues piano than his work here.” I see no reason to change anything I wrote there. I do note that his slow blues “Yancey Shuffle,” was adopted by countless other pianists including Lloyd Glenn who retitled it “Old Time Shuffle.”

Amos Milburn. If one wants a bridge from the great boogie woogie pianists like Pete Johnson to the rock and roll giants like Archibald, Fats Domino one could do no better than this Texas born blues and boogie master who dominated the charts during the late forties and early fifties. The original “Chicken Shack Boogie,” a take on “Down a Road a Piece,” “Walking Blues,” and such drinking blues as “Bad Bad Whiskey,” “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer,” and “Let Me Go Home Whiskey.” He inspired Floyd Dixon and there are his contemporaries like Ivory Joe Hunter, Charles Brown, and Little Willie Littlefield (still with us) that made many wonderful recordings, but Milburn’s piano had more impact at the time.

Whistling Alex Moore. Texas spawned too many great pianists from Texas Bill Day, Joe Pullum, Rob Cooper, Andy Boy and others so picking Moore because of his stately playing as well as his folk poetry. He did benefit from the blues revival in the sixties which allowed him to show he was still a marvelous blues pianist, lyricist and singer.

Camille Howard. There are other great piano playing blues women such as Georgia While, Julia Lee, Devonia Williams, but Howard’s piano with Roy Milton was as seminal as Mary Lou Williams with Andy Kirk’s Clouds of Joy a decade earlier. She was also a really solid singer and there was a fine reissue featuring her as a leader that was issued as part of the Specialty reissues that is worth seeking out.

Otis Spann. Its hard to leave out Memphis Slim, Little Johnny Jones, Sunnyland Slim, Black Bob, Henry Gray, and especially Big Maceo when one thinks of other great Chicago blues pianists, but Spann had something magical about his playing when heard at his best. It is unfortunate that production spoiled some of his recordings as a leader with a band (the Bluesway albums were marred by how the harmonica was recorded) but his solo and duo recordings for Candid and Storyville are classic as was his backing behind Buddy Guy on Guy's classic album,“A Man & the Blues.”