Johnny Adams Man Of My World

Johnny Adams
Man Of My World
Rounder

Johnny Adams' new album will be a welcome surprise to the Tan Canary's many fans. The choice selections of songs and a great backing band provide the foundation, but Adams sings here with few signs of his recent health problems. More importantly, he seems to be investing his performances with even more of his heart and soul than some of his acclaimed recordings of the past, even employing his falsetto throughout. Maybe when he had recuperated enough to record this he was thinking he might never get another chance, so let's get it out. Whatever, this may be as good an album as any he has recorded.

Given the circumstances, one might be accused of reading a bit more into his performances of songs expressing regrets about past mistakes as "Looking Back'" ('over my life, I can see where I caused strife, but I know, ooh yes I know I'll never make that same mistake again) or William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water" ("until your well runs dry"). In both cases, Adams' performances are as least as stunning as earlier recordings of these songs by Otis Rush and Otis Redding respectively. The tenor of the opening track, "Even Now," has a similar reflective quality as Adams regretfully sings about his woman leaving him. And even now Johnny still loves her, he wishes her the best, "but I guess we're even now." Of course, this isn't simply an album of looking back on his past mistakes. After all he asks that they dare call the bread white bread, and he doesn't want decaf on the funky 'It Ain't the Same Thing." And sometimes Johnny's mistake was coming back to the woman as he sings on the slow blues. "This Time I'm Gone For Good." Sometimes you don't want to face one's past, as on the country-flavored soul ballad 'I Don't Want to Know," where he sings "I do not want to go to New Orleans no more; I am too afraid, I might see her face, that I couldn't take." That's a pretty strong line, but its typical of this record with great material, playing and singing.

And after the blues and soul performances, the album closes with an enthralling acappella gospel performance "Never Alone," where Adams is joined by Aaron Neville. It is the cap of an almost flawless album that is one of the best blues albums issued yet this year.

This review originally appeared in issue 234 of Jazz & Blues Report in 1998. I received a review copy from Rounder Records. I did not include the personnel in the original review, but among those playing on this were David Torknowsky, Walter 'Wolfman' Washington, Jim Spake and Michael Toles. Also, I note that David Egan and Buddy Flett wrote "Even Now" and Bobby Charles wrote, "I Don't Want to Know." Other songwriters represented on this include Dan Penn. Spooner Oldham, Carson Whitsett, and Clyde Otis. Here is 'I Don't Want to Know" from this recording.

The New Orleans C.A.C. Jazz Orchestra Has A Mood Indigo

Often forgotten in Rounder Records recordings of New Orleans music in the 1980s and 1990s was the fact they did some straight ahead jazz recordings that are well worth noting. The following review of The New Orleans C.A.C. Jazz Orchestra appeared in the August 1998 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 230). I likely received a review copy from Rounder.

In 1996, Pianist David Torkanowsky put together a big band, The New Orleans C.A.C. Jazz Orchestra, with some of the Crescent City’s greatest musicians and fronted them with three of the city’s pre-eminent singers, George French, Germaine Bazzle and Johnny Adams. Its a band that includes Herlin Riley on drums, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, and Ed Peterson, Wessell Anderson and Victor Goines on reeds. They have a recording, Mood Indigo on Rounder. The band is heard on a variety of standards from such pens as Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter and Percy Mayfield. It is refreshing to hear three distinct vocal styles backed by this swinging aggregation. George French’s take on Don’t Get Around Much Anymore has a sophisticated and relaxed flavor that brings Joe Williams to mind, which is reinforced by his rendition of Carmichael’s New Orleans, a song this writer is familiar with from the sixty five year old recording by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra that included Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing. On Sometimes I’m Happy, Germaine Bazzle provides a contrasting style as she phrases the lyrics in a staccato fashion, as if playing the lyrics on a trumpet. On the mid-tempo Ellington blues, I‘m Just a Lucky So and So, Bazzle in contrast caresses the lyric, singing in a legato fashion. On her last feature, Porter’s I Love Paris, Nicholas Payton is heavily featured with some hard bop trumpet. Adams, sings very cleanly and precisely on Percy Mayfield’s Lost Mind, a staple of his repertoire, and on which he contributes a mouth trombone solo. The three join together on Mood Indigo, opening with three-part harmony with Bazzle taking the vocal lead on parts with some exquisite trombone solos from John Touchy and Mark Mullins, two persons this writer is unfamiliar with. The recording closes with the three trading lyrics on a medley of Everyday I Have the Blues (featuring Bazzle), Stormy Monday (featuring French), and Not Trustworthy (featuring Adams on another Percy Mayfield lyric) that closes with the three singers each delivering their chosen lyric.

Johnny Adams Keep His Music Planted In The Blues

The late Johnny Adams was among my favorite blues and soul singers, but he was so capable of more. His catalog on Rounder is universally excellent. The following review of one of his excellent Rounder albums appeared in the December 1996 DC Blues Calendar as well as the February 1997 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 218). I likely received my review copy from Rounder Records. This CD is available currently as a download.

Johnny Adams is simply a terrific singer and his latest Rounder album, One Foot In the Blues, has him backed by Dr. Lonnie Smith on the Hammond B-3, guitarist Jimmy Ponder and drummer Shannon Powell along with saxophonists Ed Peterson and Donald Harrison Jr. and with trumpeter Jamil Sharif. Despite the jazzy backing, this has more of a blues flavor than Adams’ two previous Rounder releases. He is in good form, although he no longer vocally soars into the stratosphere as he did a couple decades past. The title song is a fine new number penned by Dan Penn, Jonnie Barnett and Carson Whitsett. Other songs include a couple of fine blue ballads from Buddy Johnson’s pen, including I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone, and three Percy Mayfield Numbers including the classic Two Years of Torture. Smith greases the musical stew, Ponder adds some tasty fills and solos, and the horn players cook There is a relaxed groove and tasty looseness to these performances that add to Rounder’s invaluable catalog of Adams releases. Here is Johnny Adams in performance at the Lone Star in NYC from 1990.

Garrett's Percy Mayfield Tribute is Nice Effort

Singer-guitarist Amos Garrett latest release is, Get Way Back: A Tribute to Percy Mayfield, an affectionate tribute to the Poet Laureate of the Blues (Stoney Plain). Mayfield has long been a favorite for Garrett and his biggest influence as a singer and Garrett has chosen a nice selection of songs including My Jug and I, Stranger in My Hometown, The Country, River’s Invitation, Ha Ha in the Daytime, and “Lost Mind, among the eleven performances. He has a nice backing band which is a small scaled version of some of the bands that Mayfield recorded with for Tangerine and RCA with. Garrett’s baritone and low-key style is akin to Mayfield’s as well although perhaps it makes comparison with Mayfield harder to avoid compared with the late Johnny Adams, whose magnificent album of Mayfield compositions, Walking on a Tightrope, is arguably the definitive Mayfield tribute album. As amiable and likable as Garrett's renditions here are (and the solid restrained playing is especially praiseworthy), Garrett is simply not Mayfield’s equal (much less Adams' equal) as a vocalist, and his phrasing falls a bit short. There is much to like about this recording, and it is a good effort, but it does not entirely hit its target. sat 7 out of 10 on a ratings scale.