Eddie Taylor In Session

Eddie Taylor
In Session: Diary of a Chicago Bluesman 1953-1957
Jasmine

This is a public domain British reissue with some terrific blues that involved Eddie Taylor, a brilliant guitarist most associated with Jimmy Reed, but who is heard heard on a number of classic (mostly) Chicago blues recordings along with his own recordings for the Vee-Jay label. The Mississippi native is best known for his association with Jimmy Reed, but played on numerous sessions in the 1950s and 1960s for labels like Parrot, Blue Lake, Chess as well as Vee-Jay who he had four singles released under his own name. In the 1960s he shared on album on Testament and backed up Carey Bell and others for Delmark, Bluesway and other labels. He also made several albums under his name including for Advent (later on Hightone) and Antone's.

This reissue includes several selections from Jimmy Reed and Johnny Lee Hooker including Reed's "Ain't That Loving You Baby" and Hooker's "Dimples." But in addition to these hits, he is heard behind John Brim on "Ice Cream Man" (with great Little Walter harp) and the topical blues "Tough Times"; Sunnyland Slim's terrific take on the "Rolling and Tumbling" theme, "Going Back To Memphis," as well as Slim's "The Devil Is a Busy Man"; a trio of songs (including "Schooldays on My Mind" and "Ain't Times Hard") from Floyd Jones with Sunnyland Slim on piano and Snooky Pryor playing some great harp; and Little Willie Foster's "Falling Rain Blues." Taylor's own sides are equally superb including "Bad Boy," his remake of Little Johnnie Jones "Big Time Playboy" and a "Catfish Blues" variant, "Stroll Out West," which was unissued until released on an album years later.

Longtime fans of the blues will likely be familiar with many of these recordings as this contains some real gems of the Chicago blues of the fifties. Sound is good and Bob Fisher's liner notes provides a nice background of Taylor and the music here. This is an easily recommended reissue, especially for those who do not have many of the recordings on this.

I purchased this. Here is a clip of Eddie Taylor in 1970.

Snooky Pryor In This Mess Up To My Chest

Snooky Pryor
In This Mess Up To My Chest 
Antone’s 

Snooky Pryor was one of the earliest Chicago blues artists to record after World War II, first as part of Snooky and Moody, and later on his own for several labels including J.O.B. and Vee-Jay. Influenced in his harp playing by John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson, he never had great commercial success with his initial recordings, although many are classic Chicago blues performances marked by a crying vocal style complemented by his crying harp playing. Antone’s has done a great job in recording him, and has presented several remakes She Tried to Ruin Me, and Judgment Day (from a live recording), along with nice versions of Sonny Boy’s Bluebird Blues, and new songs like Bury You in a Paper Sack, and Take It Easy Greasy. The late Luther Tucker adds his cutting accompaniment to several tracks and guitarist Derek O’Brien does a yeoman’s job elsewhere. Pinetop Perkins adds his typically solid piano on several tracks, and Ted Harvey, one of the last great blues drummers, adds to the music’s spirit. Another fine album of classic Chicago blues.

This review appeared in the July-August 1994  Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 193) and I likely received a review copy from Antone's Records. This may be harder to fine on CD or LP but is available as a download. 

Snooky passed away October 18, 2006 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Here is Snooky performing his classic Judgment Day, from a New York City appearance in 1991.

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Rip Lee Pryor - Nobody But Me

There is nothing fancy about the new CD by Rip Lee Pryor, Nobody But Me (Electro-Fi). Pryor is the son of the late blues legend and blues harmonica pioneer, Snooky Pryor, but started learning to play harmonica when his father had dropped out of music. He played with his dad for a time, but in recent years had walked away from music, and recently resumed after bouts with gambling problems and cancer (now in remission). On this Rip Lee plays harmonica (using a rack) and guitar with Alex Fraser or Bucky Berger adding drums on several selections.

His father and John Lee Williamson (the first Sonny Boy Williamson) are obvious influences on his playing especially on the opening Shake Your Boogie that both Sonny Boy I and Snooky recorded. His guitar playing is pretty bare, just laying down a bare bass riff on most selections over which he sings and plays his crying harmonica. He is a very expressive singer (like his take on Elmore James’ You Gotta Move, but also handles the humor of Rice Miller’s rendition of an old English folk song, the delightful Wake Up Baby, with Fraser’s bass and circus drum adding support.

The title track is an original with Rip Lee laying down some boogie guitar to get a rocking groove which underlies his driving harp solo. Another original Lonesome, is a moody slow blues with some strong harp to accent his pleading vocal. Heard The News, credited to Snooky, is an easy boogie shuffle that incorporates Good Rocking Tonight, I Feel So Good as well as Snooky’s own Boogie Twist. Stuck on Stupid is a Rip Lee original with a Jimmy Reed boogie groove. His father’s Pitch a Boogie Woogie has Berger’s drums which helps propel the easy rocking boogie performance here with some real fine harmonica here.

The music here is pretty straight-forward and as Scott Bock observes in his liner notes, Rip Lee has a pretty stripped down sound. Nothing fancy perhaps, but Rip Lee Pryor proves he doesn’t need Nobody But Me for a straight dose of classic Chicago blues that is increasingly rare.

I purchased this.  Here is a video of Rip Lee Pryor in performance and he will be at the Pennsylvania Blues Festival this July and the link is to my Festival preview.

Looking Back At Superharps II - A Blues Harmonica Showcase

The following older review is from 2001 and likely was published in the DC Blues Society’s newsletter.

I have not heard Telarc’s initial Superharps session, but it was obviously successful enough for Telarc to follow it up with, Superharps II. The new volume features four blues legends, Chicago blues veterans Carey Bell and Snooky Pryor, and Louisiana blues legends Lazy Lester and Raful Neal (patriarch of the Neal clan). They are backed by a studio band that includes guitarist Kid Bangham and pianist Anthony Geraci.

It is only on the lengthy closing slow instrumental, Harp to Harp that all four play together. Each has at least one track on which they are the sole harp player. Various combination of players are heard on other tracks and all four acquit themselves capably although much of this material has been recorded by them before. Bell is his usual solid performer on a couple Muddy Waters tracks and Junior Wells What My Mama Told Me. I believe Snooky Pryor waxed Shake My Hand on his most recent Blind Pig album, and turns in a superlative performance on the jaunty Let Your Hair Down.

Lazy Lester’s four tracks do a very good job of evoking the classic Louisiana swamp blues sides with his remakes of Strange Things Happen and Blood Stains on the Wall being particularly strong highlights of this. Raful Neal's two selections are worthy additions to his body of recordings.

This is not a harmonica battle, but rather a showcase of four very strong blues personalties who get to showcase their music in the company of some colleagues for a very satisfying album.

Here is Raful Neal.

Here is Snooky Pryor

Johnny Young's Big Fat Chicago Mandolin Blues

There have been few blues mandolin players recorded. One of them was Johnny Young, a traditionally rooted Chicago based bluesman who passed away over thirty-five years. Rich DelGrosso celebrated the music of Young and other blues mandolin players on “Mandolin Man” from the recent album he did with John Del Toro Richardson, “Time Slips By”.

Young was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, learned from an uncle who was part of a string band in Rolling Fork, and later was associated with the Mississippi Sheiks as well as with blues legends Houston Stackhouse and Robert Nighthawk. He moved permanently to Chicago in 1940 and played in clubs with John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson as well as engaged in a number of day jobs. In 1947 he was playing on the Maxwell Street Market and with a cousin, Johnny Williams recorded Money Taking Woman, for the Ora Nelle label on which he played mandolin and sang. He accompanied his cousin on the flip side on what was one of the earliest post-war Chicago blues recordings.

He made a few more 78s and in the fifties backed Snooky Pryor on a Vee-Jay recording session. Blues and jazz writer Pete Welding extensively recorded Young on his Testament label with selections appearing on anthologies and eventually a full album of recordings with sidemen including harmonica players Big Walter and Little Walter; guitarists John Lee Granderson and Robert Nighthawk, and pianists Jimmy Walker and Otis Spann. Approximately half of these recordings featured him on mandolin. Young was recorded as part of Vanguard’s Chicago the Blues Today! series although only one of the tracks had him on mandolin. Two albums were recorded on Arhoolie, one of which included members of Muddy Waters band and some selections included his mandolin playing.

In June 1969, Young recorded with pianist Otis Spann, and guitarist/bass guitarist Sammy Lawhorn, harmonica player Paul Oscher and drummer S.P. Leary, who all were then members of Muddy Waters Band for an album that was issued in England on the Blue Horizon label as Fat Mandolin. Mike Vernon, founder of Blue Horizon, estimated the initial release only sold in the hundreds, which says more about marketing and popular tastes than the quality of the music. Sony/Blue Horizon issued a few years back Johnny Young’s The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions with some alternate takes, false starts and unissued songs. As Vernon observes in his liner notes, this is the first digital reissue of this material.

The album provides a healthy dose of Young’s mandolin starting with the opening Moaning and Groaning. where the clipped mandolin sound is complemented by Spann’s typically strong piano accompaniment as well as solos to take it out. Taken a lively, but unhurried tempo, Young’s robust vocal here is straightforward and heartfelt. There is nothing innovative here; simple strong Chicago blues sung and played with authority few today can deliver. One can hear the influence of the pioneering Leroy Carr in such Young originals as Heard My Doorbell Ring, as well as the remake of Carr’s Prison Bound, a staple of the Chicago blues scene of the time. On My Trainfare Out of Town, where Young plays guitar, Oscher evokes Walter Horton with his harmonica, while Spann pounds out another solo. 

Lula Mae is a marvelous duet of Young on mandolin backed by Lawhorn on bass guitar, while John Lee Williamson’s Shotgun Blues is titled here as Jackson Bound, and we are provided the incomplete first take as the master take as he sings the terrific line Lake Michigan Ain’t No River, Chicago Ain’t No Hilly Town. Walking Slow opens with some classic slow blues piano from Spann before Young starts his vocal and Vernon suggests Lawhorn is the guitarist here. Mandolin returns for the two, somewhat different takes of Deal the Cards, with a philosophical delivery of the lyric about always being dealt the losing hand. Lend Me You Love has some incomplete takes before a memorable rendition of a Memphis Slim inspired song that fans of the late Junior Wells should recognize. Other highlights include the wonderful rendition of Prison Bound, with just Young on mandolin and Lawhorn on bass guitar and Victoria Spivey’s Mean Old Black Snake. Also included are previously unissued recordings including a lively version of the old Memphis Jug Band’s Stealin’ that he had recorded at least twice before.

It is an important and valuable reissue that should be available from better retailers. I purchased this.