Finis Tasby People Don’t Care

Finis Tasby

People Don’t Care

Shanachie

Shanachie, which also is the parent label for Yazoo, is best known for acoustic and world beat music. With this debut album of West Coast bluesman Finis Tasby, the label presents its first modern urban blues release. Playing and singing for over three decades, Tasby’s Texas band, The Thunderbirds, spawned a young Z.Z. Hill. Over recent years he has played with Freddie King, Lowell Fulson, John Lee Hooker and others, and recorded some singles. He finally has his first full album, and he has obviously made friends over the years as Elvin Bishop, Mick Taylor and Vernon Reid each guest on guitar and solo, while Lowell Fulson shares a vocal on Find Something Else to Do, and wrote Just a Kiss. 

Tasby is a gritty singer and guitarist and his music is suggestive of the late sixties and early seventies recordings by Fulson and McCracklin. He also co-wrote four of the ten songs, and producer Charles Collins had his hand in another four. Shanachie describes this as a set of rocking blues, but Tasby’s gritty vocals and guitar is undercut by the vocal choruses and horn arrangements on some of the cuts. Fulson’s Just a Kiss, is a terrific song in which the chorus is successfully integrated in the terrific performance. This and the duet with Fulson, Find Something Else to Do, best display Tasby’s strengths, and even if the horns overplay on Gotta Draw the Line or the shuffle Po’ Boy Blues, Tasby convincingly delivers the lyrics and adds biting guitar. Drinkin’ Bad Whiskey is a slow Tasby original about how alcohol and drugs can’t ease his pain which is fervently sung and sports a fiery solo. Gonna Miss Your Love is a medium tempo number with a latin tinge and a cooing backing chorus that comes across because it is more understated in delivery. 

There is plenty about Finis Tasby to like here, despite the heavy-handed production in some areas. Unfortunately, this album could have some marketing problems, as it seems to be aimed towards the southern black blues audience and Shanachie might have a tough time cracking that market. At the same time, the vocal choruses and horns on several tracks might diminish its appeal among white blues buyers, who are often oriented to guitar solo based albums. This would be a shame, as there is some terrific Finis Tasby to be heard here.

I likely received my review copy from Shanachie. This review originally appeared in the September 1995 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 204). Here is Finis Tasby performing "As the Years Go Passing By."

Lowell Fulson Live in 1983

We have Billy Vera to thank for the release of Lowell Fulson Live 1983 At My Place (Rock Beat). Fulson is caught in performance backed by Billy Vera and the Beaters at the Santa Monica club, At My Place and its a marvelous near hour of music as Fulson revisits a number of classic she had recorded such as (Honey Hush) You Talk Too Much; Blue Shadows: Reconsider Baby; Black Nights; (Blues Pain) Do The Things You Do; Every Day I Have the Blues; Sinner’s Prayer and Tramp; along with interpretations of blues standards Going To Chicago; Stoop Down Baby; Too Many Drivers at the Wheel; and Love Her With a Feeling. I added parenthesis to a couple song titles to indicate what the song is also known as.

Fulson is in solid form here. His parched, graining Oklahoma panhandle blues voice carried the same soulfulness here as on his numerous recordings. And The Beaters provide strong backing. Saxophonists Jerry Peterson and Lon Price adding their own solos to Fulson’s own prickly T-Bone Walker-style. There was an excellent Fulson live recording from a Japanese tour with a band that included Lee Allen that has never been issued in the US. The performances on Live 1983 At My Place stand up nicely to that earlier one and this should be of interest to anyone interested in one of the giants of the last sixty-five years of blues.

I purchased this and you might try www.bluebeatmusic.com for copies. Here is Lowell Fulson with Lloyd Glenn doing Reconsider Baby from 1984.

 

Al King Was a Blues Master

It has been three decades since Al King briefly flirted with chart success with his evocative Think Twice Before You Speak. Frustrations with the record industry led the Louisiana native to foreswear recording, although he has obviously had a change of heart. The Rochester, New York Forevermore label has just issued his first new recordings in near thirty years, It‘s Rough Out There, which follows up the label‘s 1996 compilation of many of King‘s classic recordings, Al King Blues Master, The Complete Sahara and Shirley Recordings.

As related in the notes to Blues Master, King (who was born Al K. Smith) grew up on the big bands and Jimmy Rushing was a particular favorite. After finishing his stint in the Service, King moved to San Francisco in 1947, eventually moving to LA where he first recorded for John Dolphin‘s Recorded in Hollywood label in 1951. In 1953 he recorded as a member of the Savoys for the Combo label. Around this time he hooked with Johnny Otis and performed for Otis’ review for a few years before recording two of his compositions, My Last Letter and On My Way
for the Oakland based Music City label with the studio band led by a 17 year old Johnny Heartsmen.

Eventually moving to San Francisco, he recorded for Bob Gedddins‘ Irma label at the same time falling under the musical spell of Lowell Fulson and Jimmy McCracklin. He in fact became friends with McCracklin, touring and recording with him. It is his voice that is the second voice on McCracklin‘s hit, I Just Got to Know, and he recorded with a female singer as Al and Nettie an answer song, Now You Know. “While the recording did not establish his name, it enabled him to meet Ron Badger, owner of the Shirley label.

With Shirley, King made perhaps his best known recording, a terrific rendition of Lowell Fulson‘s Reconsider Baby that has been anthologized in part because of the presence of Johnny Heartsmen‘s guitar. This was the flip side of On my Way,“ a reworked version of his earlier recording that opens Blues Master, which features King‘s bittersweet vocal against a lively, brassy backing that is propelled by charged rhythmic playing from Hearstman. His other single for Shirley is a terrific Lingerin‘ Love with some splendid lyrics backed by a dance number Shimmy & Shake.

Then King started his own label, Flag for which he recorded the stunning Think Twice Before You Speak, a moody slow blues with menacing lyrics about the graveyard being full of people who talk too much and while he‘s not a dentist, he‘d be happy to remove one‘s teeth for free. It was coupled with Heartsman‘s uptempo The Winner,“ and it was successful enough that it was picked up by the Buffalo based Sahara label for which King waxed another four singles including the marvelous My Money Ain‘t Long Enough, about his woman who spends all his money and gambles just like a man so that even though he‘s working a full time and part-timeime job, it just ain‘t enough for her. With a morose delivery akin to McCracklin and Fulson, he hammers the lyrics home as Hearstman‘s guitar lines run in and around his vocal. While Fulson has recorded Think Twice Before You Speak, and Phillip Walker‘s most recent album, it is surprising that this song has not be similarly revived. The rest of this album is of a similar quality, other songs reflecting his similar morose view of human relationships, along with a terrific cover of Lloyd Glenn‘s Blues Shadows. The album concludes from a 1968 recording, Get Lost, “where he cleverly incorporates the lyrics of his songs. There are plenty of great blues in a vein that anyone that loves the McCracklin and Fulson blues of this period will want.

While he may have sworn off recording, King has remained active performing, and obviously continuing to write new material. Three decades later he has returned to the studio producing It‘s Rough Over Here, backed by a young group the Sugarbees who may not provide him with the subtlety and suppleness of Heartsman‘s playing and arranging skills, but generally acquit themselves quite well. Of the ten songs here, only Peoples in the Graveyard“ was a familiar song, originally recorded as My Name is Misery. Here King recounts just how many ways he is bad off before the tagline, “My Name is Misery, peoples in the graveyard are better off than me.”

The title track has him recounting the ills of modern urban life and how he wished he could move away from the corner drug sellers and the drive by shootings. He is a bit more assertive on Ain‘t Giving Up Nothing, telling his woman that there relationship has to be a give or take relationship. Sweet Jimmy‘s Place represents a change of pace, while the cynicism of You Can‘t Trust Nobody should be obvious from the title. Its amazing how much like Fulson he sounds like today, and shares with Fulson a deliberate, laconic singing attack with the same appealing sound. It‘s Rough Over Here is a release that will be welcomed by those who have wondered to him. It will also make him among the obvious choices for blues comeback artist of the year, and one might expect several of these songs to become new blues classics.

I wrote this review back in 1998 when these releases were issued. I believe it originally appeared in the DC Blues Calendar. Since I originally wrote this, I heard the original of Ain‘t Giving Up Nothing, so it was another song Al King had recorded previously. I believe I received a review copy from the label. These show up as still being available. 

McCracklin's Well Seasoned Taste of the Blues

Jimmy McCracklin’s career still goes strong almost five decades after his first recordings. His second Bullseye Blues album joins him with Johnny Otis, Lowell Fulson, Smokey Wilson, Barbara Lynn, saxophonist Bobby Forte and the late Larry Davis for what is billed a West Coast Blues Reunion. McCracklin certainly has grown from the early recordings that showed a strong influence of Walter Davis’ bittersweet blues. By the mid-fifties, his Blues Blasters with the late Lafayette ‘Thing’ Thomas, were blasting out shuffles and minor key blues with rocking boogie piano, Thomas’ cutting, twisting guitar lines and honking saxes ripping through shuffles and mid-tempo blues. A Taste of Blues (Blueseye Blues) finds him in a funky mood reminiscent of his later Minit and Stax recordings as he performs some new songs, and new versions of older songs like My Answer or Yesterday is Gone. McCracklin’s best songs reflect Walter Davis’ influence is his dealing with adult human relationships, while his vocals are delivered with a low key that suggests a certain hesitancy and vulnerability. While Lowell Fulson, Barbara Lynn and Smokey Wilson each contribute guitar, McCracklin’s own guitarist Pee Wee Thomas is the most effective, adding tasteful, scratchy solos that complement McCracklin’s reflective lyrics and tempos. In contrast, Smokey Wilson’s overstated, buzzsaw solos don’t work and suggest his limitations as a guitarist. Former B.B. King saxophonist Bobby Forte adds several fine tenor saxophone solos including a really fine, moody break on My Answer. The duet with Lynn (whose guitar solo is nicely constructed), Yesterday Is Gone, is nice rendering of the lyrics dealing with the two recognizing the break down in their relationship and a hope for reconciliation, as they jointly sing “Let’s talk about our future and let bygones be gone…” The slightly jerky rhythms are those that would be echoed by Magic Sam and other sixties admirers of McCracklin. There is little on this of the hard rocking boogies McCracklin recorded of Peacock, Irma and various West Coast labels. The opening number Boogie On Down, relates not to hot boogie woogie numbers, but the let’s get down and boogie funk dancing. It may be the nature of McCracklin’s songs, vocal approach, or the lazy tempo, but his music has aged very well. With Ron Levy adding organ, and the use of a vocal chorus on several songs, one cannot accuse Bullseye of underproducing this, although there are places like Put Up Or Shut Up, where a lighter touch and a shorter performance would have made for a more focused blues. Jimmy McCracklin at 2008 Pocono Blues Festival Photo © Ron Weinstock Another solid recording from McCracklin, although when his best recordings from the forties, fifties and sixties get reissued on cd, this may be viewed as a minor recording. I have made a few minor changes to the review that originally appeared in the October 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 195), and I believe is still in print. I likely received a review copy from Rounder Records. I previously reviewed on this blog an English Ace reissue of classic McCracklin recordings from the Modern label, Blues Blastin’.

Ray Bailey's "Satan's Horn"

Satan’s Horn was a surprise debut album by West Coast bluesman Ray Bailey that was picked up by the Zoo label after initially on the Bohemia Music Group. The following review originally appeared in Jazz & Blues Report Issue 199 (March 1995), which I have made a few minor stylistic changes to. Satan’s Horn is available from third party sellers on amazon. Ray Bailey has a more recent recording available, Resurrection, which I have not heard. 


Satan’s Horn is a remastered and repackaged issue of an album originally released on Bohemia Music Organization, a small Los Angeles label. It won the Living Blues Critics Poll for best debut release and this writer was quite enthusiastic about it. Bailey is a Watts native who has played blues and jazz with Lowell Fulson and Jimmy McGriff, among others. Satan’s Horn is certainly an auspicious debut album. For those unfamiliar, a good reference point is of a street-wise Robert Cray, given similar instrumentation and a jazzy attack, although Bailey plays with a harder approach and his songs are structured in a more traditional blues vein. For example, Bad Times, Sad Times, is suggestive of B.B. King’s recording of The Thrill is Gone.


Bailey’s lyrical themes are a bit more earthy and urban centered than Cray’s. Rather than rueful observations of breaking up his motel liaison’s marriage, Bailey’s Saturday Night Special is a boast of his loving prowess. Other songs deal with crack addicted moms (Satan’s Horn refers to a crack pipe), hopelessness (on Cold to the Bone, where he plays acoustic guitar and the band plays sparingly behind him), and other street-level realities. All are originals, with the exception of solid treatment of Tampa Red’s Love Her With a Feeling (here credited to Lowell Fulson).


Bailey is a strong singer who has an unforced delivery and a tasty guitarist, and with this stunning debut now under the BMG distributed Zoo label, it will be easy to find and Ray Bailey will no longer simply be a figure that only some critics and a few other lucky aficionados have heard of.  (With respect to this last sentence, remember this review was from 1995.)

Arhoolie's 1963 Down Home Musical Journey

Arhoolie Records is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. It was a time when a California school teacher Chris Strachwitz went and met a British jazz and blues writer, Paul Oliver and toured part of the US and recorded and interviewed a number of primarily blues performers. A release in 1960 by Mance Lipscomb would launch the label which has produced albums of an incredible range of music. A book and 4 CD set “Hear Me Howling!” has been issued to celebrate this but their are other items to note as well.

In 1963, Strachwitz accompanied a German filmmaker, Dietrich Wawzyn, on a journey across the United States that resulted in three films for German television on blues, gospel and country music. The original negatives for those films have been lost, but with the surviving film and the assistance of the editing of Ingrid Tank, the Arhoolie Foundation presents “Down Home Music: A Journey Through the Heartland 1963.” As Strachwitz observes in his commentary track which one can listen to, the present DVD-film is more akin to his own memories of the 1963 journey than the three genre films produced. Also noted is that Wawzyn had a great interest in jazz and with the exception of the New Orleans jazz presented, apparently did not see get to film much jazz. This DVD has approximately 75 minutes of music from a variety of traditions that includes many amazing moments.

There is certainly some magic here to be seen. The film opens with the music of Jesse Fuller who then is seen entering a door (which Strachwitz advises us was Fuller’s home) and then getting behind the fotdella (a foot pedal bass), picking up a 12-string guitar and adding a rack with a harmonica and kazoo launching into a rousing “San Francisco Bay Blues,” with the camera work displaying his feet moving the pedals to play the bass as he adds harmonica and kazoo to the accompaniment of what has become a classic folk song. Its followed by a skittle band and the great folk singer Barbara Dane backed by a jug band and then a performance of Lowell Fulson in a Fillmore area club (with the night club audience scenes from another filming edited adroitly by Ms. Tank). Some powerful gospel music is presented with the fervent congregation of King Louis H. Narcisse, and the Arizona Pentecostal fervor of Louis Overstreet (on the streets and in church) as well as Brother Davis and a tent revival. There is an Indian conjunto trio presented as well as the traditional Navaho sounds of El Lee Natay.

Some of the most remarkable footage for blues fans follows next. Mance Lipscomb, Lightnin’ Sam Hopkins, and Black Ace are filmed on the porch, in their yard or living room. Their is a frustrating short live club clip of legendary steel guitarist Hop Wilson who Strachwitz in his commentary admits he did not think much of at the time but is regarded as a blues legend today. This little bit of video of Wilson may cause some jaws to drop (I remember the first time I saw a clip of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie on Joe Franklin’s New York City tv show. Then its followed by a terrific clip of pianist Whistlin’ Alex Moore pounding out some barrelhouse piano and whistling fiercely.

From then we travel to Louisiana for a terrific cajun two-step by Shorty LeBlanc, Jay Stutes and the Sugar Bees and gospel by Willie Thomas and family. The then recently opened Preservation Hall is the scene of the George Lewis Quartet with Sweet Emma playing and singing about not giving any of her jelly roll away while Lewis’ two selections include his marvelous “Burgundy Blues.” The filming is marvelous in capturing the personality of The Bell Girl as well as the warmth and soulful bluesy feel of the New Orleans clarinetist. Also filmed was the Eureka Brass Band coming to and from a video. This is priceless because this was the classic brass band. The American Music albums of the Eureka Brass Band are invaluable for those interested in this aspect of New Orleans music.

The remainder of the DVD is primarily devoted to traditional country music by the likes of The Hodges Brothers and J.E. Mainier’s Mountainers, but also includes some film from a Red Sovine Nashville recording session and the Western sound of The Willis Brothers with an amusing fiddle playing routine. Interspersed with this is some lively, archaic African-American string band blues and hokum from Blind James Campbell.

Those interested in American vernacular music will find “Down Home Music: A Journey Through the Heartland 1963,” a fascinating video glimpse at traditions that still move us today. I would suggest watching it and then way=tching it a second time with the optional audio track featuring off-the-cuff commentary by Chris Strachwitz. This is available at a variety of sources including www.bluebeatmusic.com, but you may want to check it out at Arhoolie Records own website, www.arhoolie.com.

I will be reviewing ”Hear Me Howling!” in a few days. That like this was a purchase.

Phillip Walker 1937-2010

2007 Pocono Blues -822, originally uploaded by NoVARon.

This picture from the 2007 Pocono Blues Festival was the last time I saw singer and guitarist Phillip Walker, who passed away today July 22, 2010 at the age of 73.

Delta Groove, the last label he recorded with sent out the following brief obituary:

"Born February 11, 1937 near Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the small town of Welsh, Phillip Walker's earliest musical influences came via the Cajun and Creole rhythms he heard as a youngster. A second cousin to Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and huge admirer of T-Bone Walker, Phillip began making a name for himself in the early 1950s with his first recording session backing pianist Roscoe Gordon. At the age of 16, Walker left home to tour with Zydeco king Clifton Chenier (who incidentally gave the young fledgling Walker his first bona fide guitar) and never looked back.

After relocating to Los Angeles in 1959, Walker cut his first side as a bandleader; the storming "Hello My Darling", produced by J.R. Fulbright for Elko Records. His first full length album didn't appear until much later though. With the help of long-time supporter and producer Bruce Bromberg, Walker cut the excellent LP "The Bottom of the Top" in 1973 for Hugh Hefner's short-lived Playboy label. Over the next three decades Walker's musical career continued to pick up steam with numerous recording projects for HighTone, Black Top, Rounder, JSP and Alligator Records.

In 2007, Randy Chortkoff signed Phillip Walker to Delta Groove Music and released the critically acclaimed CD "Going Back Home". The recording session featured the renowned guitarist going back to his roots and exploring the rich musical history of Louisiana, Texas and West Coast Blues on classic material by Lowell Fulson, Ray Charles, Lonesome Sundown, Lightnin' Hopkins, Champion Jack Dupree and Frankie Lee Sims among others. Going Back Home was later awarded Best Album of 2007 in the New Recordings / Contemporary Blues category by the Living Blues Awards Critics' Poll."

I (Ron) have been a fan since the Playboy Album that was produced by Bruce Bromberg. Highlight's included the rock and roll of "Hello My Darling," a down home country rendition of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Hello Central," and a terrific gritty rendition of Sam Cooke's "Laughing & Clownin'. Bromberg produced a number of his best recordings, some appearing on Rounder with "Tough As I Want to Be" being a particular favorite of mine. Bromberg also united him with swamp blues legend Lonesome Sundown for another album, "From LA to L.A." He was also part of the "Lone Star Shootout" with fellow Gulf Coast blues masters Lonnie Brooks and Long John Hunter. Walker also did a fair amount of session work for Bromberg, most notably on excellent recordings by Johnny Shines and Eddie Taylor as well as other sessions with legends like Percy Mayfield.

I was fortunate enough to have known this gentleman and true blues master whose moody, grainy performances were in the same vein as the late vocalist Al King and the great Lowell Fulson. What a fine person who should have been a household name. May his music live on forever.

Bob Corritore - Congratulations on 25 Years of Great Blues Radio

I became first aware of Bob Corritore in the '70s when he issued some blues albums by lesser known, but hardly lesser, Chicago artists Little Willie Anderson and Big Leon Brooks. Subsequently he relocated to Phoenix Arizona where he has become a multiple blues-threat, running a blues venue, The Rhythm Room; hosting for twenty-five years a blues show, Those Lowdown Blues, on KJZZ 91.5 on Sunday Nights (from 7:00PM to Midnight Phoenix Time); being a blues harmonica player of some note; and being a producer of many fine blues records.

Recently, Southwest Musical Arts Foundation Records has issued Broadcasting the Blues, a 25th Anniversary Celebration of Bob's excellent Those Lowdown Blues program. It includes some relaxed informal performances by such blues artists as Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Flynn, CeDell Davis, Dave Riley, Henry Gray, Johnny Dyer, Lazy Lester, Louisiana Red, Lowell Fulson, and Tomcat Courtney, that were done during Bob's show. While one would not call this essential, there are some very memorable moments such Lowell Fulson reprising "Sinner's Prayer," Billy Boy Arnold's solo version of "Shake Your Boogie,"Tomcat Courtney's "The World is Mad," Louisiana Red's gospel number (with nice slide) "Home in the Rock," Henry Gray's "Cold Chills," and Lazy Lester's "Out on the Road."

This is available from KJZZ (http://kjzz.org/music/blues) which gets proceeds from the sales as well as Bluebeat Music (www.bluebeatmusic.com). Having listened over the net to Bob's program, my only regret is that it is not on earlier as he plays nothing but the blues.May Bob have another 25 years of playing the real lowdown blues. Bob's own website is http://www.bobcorritore.com, and is a valuable resource in its own right. As the late Willie Dixon is heard, "Bob, keep on playing the blues." I will keep on listening,