Cookin' With Pianist David Bennett Cohen

Some may remember the psychedelic group, Country Joe & The Fish. One its members, David Bennett Cohen, has been part of the blues and roots circuit (This writer saw him at the Western Maryland Blues Festival several years back), and has a new CD, Cookin’ With Cohen (Core Records). Cohen is heard mostly on piano (he plays acoustic guitar also) and backed by a small group of guitar, bass, drums and percussion on a selection of blues and blues-oriented material that displays his solid blues keyboard style and musical versatility.

The title track is a nice boogie woogie with also a guitar solo from Chris Carter. Carter adds a blues-rock guitar tone on The Ballad of Ruby and Jaspar, before Cohen takes his solo on this medium walking tempo instrumental. Cohen’s two-handed attack is well paced and doesn’t need the distraction of the buzzy guitar tone here. Bobby Day adds the vocal on the gospel-tinged We All Want Peace in Our Time, which features more rollicking piano by Cohen along with a somewhat jazzier solo here, but its Cohen’s playing that still is at the core.

Like Stars After Sunrise has a Latin groove, while Booze is a morning after blues with Day singing rather colorlessly and the percussion heavy Crawfish Royale has a New Orleans second line groove. Portuguese Moon features vocalist Elizabeth Lohninger on a Latin-tinged pop number, while Cohen adapts K.C. Douglas’ Mercury Blues into an easy rocking piano boogie blues with one of the better vocals from Bobby Day and also some of guitarist Carter’s best playing. Cohen also brings a distinctive touch to, When the Saints Go Marching In, which opens as a dirge before the group kick off a second line rhythm and new lyrics about New Orleans being restored. However, the vocal is curiously bland. The closing Blues For a Summer’s Dream, is a nice, moody solo instrumental that thankfully eschews the full band.

Cohen is a wonderful pianist with a nice touch and paces his performances well but the backing group makes some of these performances sound generic.

I wrote this review in Fall, 2007 for Jazz & Blues Report, but not sure if it was published. I am not sure from whom I received my review copy, although I believe it was a publicist.

K.C. Douglas Mercury Blues and more

One thing about blues is that often a performer with modest talent is still capable of making moving music. One such gentleman was K.C. Douglas. Douglas, a Mississippi native born in 1913 near Jackson, moved to California to work in the Naval shipyards. Growing up he started playing music, first learning from an uncle, and then catch local musicians at Saturday Night getaways. At the same time he started listening to the records of Tommy Johnson whom K.C. met and played with him around 1940 in Jackson. Johnson’s music left its imprint that remained when K.C. moved to California.

After settling in California, he somehow ended up in Bob Geddins’ studios and recorded a song “Mercury Boogie” that was issued on Geddins’ Down Town label and became somewhat of a hit in the Bay area and parts of Texas and Louisiana. This song of course is better known by versions by the Steve Miller Band and Alan Jackson. Geddins though moved on from the downhome blues so it would be a few years before he would record again. At the very beginning of the folk revival he recorded for Cook and then two albums for Bluesville that were produced by Chris Strachwitz. In 1973 and 1974 Strachwitz assembled Douglas with a small group that included Richard Riggins on harmonica, Jim Marshall on drums and Ron Thompson on guitar. The result was an album on Arhoolie, “The Country Boy,” that subsequently has been issued on CD as “Mercury Blues,” with added unissued selections, including some from the early sixties that are solo or with an unidentified band.

The band here plays efficiently and supportively to Douglas’ heartfelt vocals and simple, rhythmic guitar playing. I know little about drummer Marshall. Riggins, who recorded as Harmonica Slim for Trix and Fedora, passed away few years ago while Thompson is still active in the blues world as a first-rate traditionally based multi-instrumentalist. His work on this recording as well with Little Willie Littlefield, Riggins and Schoolboy Cleve for the Blues Connoisseur label were amongst his earliest recordings who also spent several years with John Lee Hooker and Mick Fleetwood’s Blue Whale.

In any event, “Mercury Blues” is a solid unassuming but easily recommended recording of Mississippi blues performed by Douglas and his ensemble. There is a reworking of his “Mercury Boogie,” along with a nice rendition of “Catfish Blues,” and his original “Woke Up This Morning.” One of several recordings from the 1960s is the fervent “I’m Gonna Build a Web” is a solid, more modern, blues with an emphatic vocal and some nice piano and sax. Then there are three solo tracks including “Make Your Coffee, with some very adroit guitar. another 1960 solo performance, ”Night Shirt Blues,“ is an excellent original built around the ”Catfish Blues,“ and then followed by a fine rendition of Tommy Johnson’s ”Canned Heat Blues.“ Listening to these solo tracks are certainly going to encourage me to try to locate his Bluesville recordings which I believe were reissued as part of the Original Blues Classics series. These solo tracks are a bonus to the fine down home blues group heard here.

I won’t say that the music on ”Mercury Blues“ is essential to a blues collection, but it is strongly performed and delivered from the heart. The music here is certainly equal to anything produced by some of Douglas’ better known contemporaries from Mississippi such as Honeyboy Edwards and Son Thomas. I purchased this on sale from Arhoolie (http://chulasfronteras.com/) and I believe it is on sale (as I write this) at a bargain price but even at regular price is well worth it for folks who love real deal downhome blues.

Some Outstanding Blues Reissues of 2007

In a second of three posts here are some reissues of first release of vintage blues and R&B that I believe merits your consideration. I have links to my reviews of the cds on this blog.
Andrew Brown - Big Brown Blues (Black Magic) Magic collection by singer who may superficially be described as in the style of Little Milton.
Johnnie Taylor - Live at the Summit Club (Stax). The Soul Philospher in a great live performance from time of Wattstax with a heavy blues emphasis on material.
Henry Townsend - The Real St. Louis Blues (Arcola) Distinctive acoustic blues by one who performed with Robert Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Roosevelt Sykes, Walter Davis and others. His minor key piano blues are particularly moving. This label has some really important releases out and I do not believe they have been publicized but they certainly deserve. I became aware of this label last year so even though its a pre-2007 release I am including it.
Various - Bullet Records Blues (SPV Blue). Excellent collection of blues by the likes of Walter Davis and St. Louis Jimmy that was issued on Nashville label.
Various - Bullet Records Rhythm & Blues (SPV Blue). Another of Fred James' compilations of vintage Nashville labels with some great jump blues starting with Wyonnie Harris (with Sun Ra on piano). He has other notable reissues on SRV Blue of the Champion and other labels, but these two on Bullet are musically the finest.
Various - Crescent City Bounce (JSP) Wonderful European public domain 4 CD set of rare New Orleans recordings including great sides by Archibald, Smilin’ Joe, Roosevelt Sykes, Tommy Ridgely, Earl King and others.
Various - Down Home Blues Classics- (2CDS) California & West Coast 48-54 (Boulevard Vintage). Simply stunning downhome blues performances by the likes of KC Douglas, Sidney Maiden, Black Diamond, Little Son Willis, Haskell Sadler, Slim Green and others
Various - Down Home Blues Classics- (2CDS) Memphis & the South (Boulevard Vintage). Another compilation of terrific downhome blues with Willie Love, Willie Nix, Joe Hill Louis, Lightning Slim, Schoolboy Cleve, Big Joe Williams, John Lee, Luther Huff, Dr. Ross and more.
Various - MERCURY RECORDS- (2CDS) The New Orleans Sessions 1950 & 1953 (Bear Family). Expanded compilation that includes early recordings by Professor Longhair and others (including Lee Allen's first recordings as a sideman).

Mercy Dee's Troublesome Blues

It was back in the early 1990s that Arhoolie made available its 1961 recordings by Texas pianist-singer Mercy Dee Walton Troublesome Mind. Mercy Dee, who died in 1962, was one of the more distinctive performers and lyricists of the postwar blues. You may not have heard his Specialty recording, One Room Country Shack, but are likely familiar with other recordings of the song (Including Buddy Guy) and will have a sense of the powerful lyrical imagery conveyed (“People, I sitting here a thousand miles from nowhere. Here in my one room country little shack,”). The album includes a remake of it along with several songs employing the same melody as well as also possess distinctive and equally compelling lyrics like Have You Ever Been Out In The Country. While not as extroverted a showman as other Texas born pianists who moved to the West Coast such as Amos Milburn and Little Willie Littlefield, Mercy Dee played crisply and thoughtfully. On the slow pieces he plays a spare bass while playing authoritatively with his right hand. He certainly could barrelhouse with the best of them as on Mercy’s Shuffle or the rocking Red Light, with his clever use of rhymes in the tradition of What’d I Say. Mercy Dee's straightforward vocals mixed with his lyrical imagery and solid piano (backed by among others K.C. Douglas and Sidney Maiden) packed a real punch. This is a first rate reissue.

(This is rewritten from my original review which appeared in the February 1992 Jazz & Blues Report.