This installment of Take 5 is devoted to the blues of Sonny Boy Williamson II. The following is taken from Wikipedia, "Alex or Aleck Miller (néFord, possibly December 5, 1912[3][a] – May 24, 1965),[4] known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter.[2]
He was an early and influential blues harp stylist who recorded successfully in the 1950s and 1960s. Miller used various names,
including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue, before calling himself Sonny Boy Williamson, which was also the name of a popular Chicago blues singer and harmonica player. To distinguish the two, Miller has been referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II."
He was a remarkable harmonica player as well as a singer and he seamlessly switching between his vocals and playing the harmonica. He was a popular performer who had a radio program, King Biscuit Time, sponsored by a flour company and he was so popular, that they sold cornmeal named after him. He first recorded for the Jackson, Mississippi Trumpet label backed such musicians as Joe Willie Wilkins, Willie Love, Elmore James. He also played on Elmore's original Trumpet recording of "Dust My Broom." Later he would move north and record for the Chess Brothers' Checker subsidiary. He achieved international notoriety when he traveled to Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival Tours. Later he toured England and played with such up-and-coming bands as The Yardbirds and The Animals. He died in May1965 after returning to the United States from Europe. We start this brief playlist with one of his first Trumpet recordings, "Nine Below Zero." He would re-record this for Checker.
Among his earliest recordings when he moved to Chicago was "All My Love In Vain." Robert Lockwood, Jr., who played with Sonny Boy before he moved north, was on many of the early Checker sessions.
When I first got into blues, one of my favorite Sonny Boy numbers was "Help Me." When Junior Wells recorded his tribute to Sonny Boy, he sang this song.
Next up is the moody, surreal "Unseen Eye."
Lastly, we have a video of him performing in Europe.
As a special bonus, we have him performing with Rashaan Roland Kirk in Copenhagen.
Certainly hope you enjoyed this week's dose of blues.
For this week's Take 5, we have a short playlist of Rice Miller, aka Sonny Boy Williamson II. A wizard in the harmonica, a seductive singer and a marvelous songwriter, he was a major figure in the Delta Blues, most notably with his King Biscuit Time broadcasts. He was associated with most major the Trumpet Records label, "Eyesight to the Blind."
Sonny Boy moved to the Chess family of labels and recorded many stunning recordings including "Don't Start Me To Talking."
One of my favorites is his recording of "Help Me" which is musically adapted from the Booker T and the MGs' hit "Green Onions."
Another gem is "All My Love In Vain."
Finally, here is a video of Sonny Boy recorded in Europe during one of his European tours doing "Bye Bye Bird."
Blues (and Jazz) artists have been recording blues about the holidays almost as long as such music has been recorded. Here are a few gems to help celebrate the holiday. Here Blind Lemon Jefferson sings Christmas Eve Blues.
Here is Charlie Jordan singing Christmas Christmas Blues and that is (unless I am deaf) the Devil's Son-in-Law, Peetie Wheatstraw on piano.
And now the great Blind Blake singing Lonesome Christmas Blues.
Moving a head a few decades we get the second Sonny Boy Williamson's, Sonny Boy's Christmas Blues.
Lightnin' Hopkins gives his take on Merry Christmas.
Now Freddie King has Christmas Tears.
But Eddie C. Campbell has found out that Santa's Messin' With the Kid.
But Denise Lasalle says that Santa's Got the Christmas Blues.
This is my favorite Louis Armstrong Christmas song, 'Zat You, Santa Claus?
No Charles Brown today (I will hold his holiday songs for Christmas Day itself. As Marvn Sease say, may you have a Funky Christmas.
Arkansas blues artist CeDell Davis is one of the more unique practitioners of slide guitar blues. Originally right-handed, childhood polio left him partially paralyzed. He now plays left-handed, fretting with a left-handed butter knife and developing his unique tunings and the highly individual bottleneck style he employed while working with Robert Nighthawk and others in the delta area.
Robert Palmer, then pop music critic for the New York Times, wrote an enthusiastic article of surviving juke joint blues in the delta area which focused on Davis. Later, Palmer helped arrange for him to appear at the old Tramps in New York. I had the pleasure of seeing him there and was enthralled by his highly unique, bittersweet blues. Field recordings of solo work appeared on anthologies by L&R and Rooster Blues, but only gave a sense of his music. Recently Fat Possum issued a full album, Feel Like Doin’ Something Wrong, which was mostly solo with three band tracks. I understand that in the decade between when I first saw him and the Fat Possum album, he had suffered some health setbacks. This was particularly apparent on the solo recordings which sounded tired, while the band recordings were more vigorous.
CeDell is back with his second Fat Possum album, one of the first to be issued under the label’s licensing arrangement with Capricorn Records. It is oddly titled The Best of CeDell Davis, almost suggesting it is a compilation, but it is not. He is backed by Capt. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit (whom I am totally unfamiliar with), who do a workmanlike job and elevate the music while giving it more focus. Davis is a unique blues artist with a very somber singing style and an acidic bottleneck approach, to which Hampton occasionally adds a busier, blues-rock tone nicely complementing CeDell’s playing. The songs are traditionally based, but treated to Davis’ own particular spin. His own Fattenin’ Frogs For Snakes is a different tune from the Sonny Boy Williamson classic, and CeDell’s Boogie is a chance for he and Hampton to play some slide.
Davis’ music is never flashy, and his vocals and slide possess a barely restrained, burning edge. While playing time may be short at about 40 minutes, this is a much more satisfactory introduction to Davis’ music than his earlier Fat Possum release.
This review originally appeared in the May 1995 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 201). I likely received a review copy from the publication or the record company.While I didn't focus on the specific personnel, it is apparently Derek Trucks adding the slide on CeDell's Boogie. Here is CeDell playing a house party.
I’ve known Robert Lockwood since the fall of 1970, my senior year at Case Western Reserve University when I interviewed him for a student newspaper. At the time Robert was driving a delivery truck for a Cleveland pharmacy, and playing music part time. The previoussummer he attended the second Ann Arbor Blues Festival, and was coaxed up on stage where gave a great performance that led to his first album Steady Rolling Man (on Delmark) as well as playing on a Roosevelt Sykes album, Feel Like Blowing My Horn (also on Delmark). In addition to my interview of Robert in the fall of 1970, I had him on my radio show on the CWRU station. WRUW‑FM in Spring of 1971, and I had the opportunity to interview him in a Buffalo hotel May 12, 1978 (which Jim O’Neal and Amy Van Singel transcribed for a Living Blues interview that never ran).
Robert Lockwood Jr at the 2005 Pocono Blues Festival
In a review of Robert Lockwood Jr.’s new recording, What’s the Score, in the first issue of Blues Revue Quarterly, Brett Bonner writes, “Robert Lockwood is one of the greatest guitarists the blues has ever produced. His music has, in its own subtle way, shaped the blues of the modern era.” Living Blues editor Peter Lee concluded an article on Lockwood in the July, 1991 Guitar Player, “Lockwood’s history is almost that of the blues. Yet he brought something more to the blues in both his style and in his playing. And in doing that, he can claim much more than most musicians could ever hope to.”
Robert Lockwood was born 20 miles from Helena in Marvell, Arkansas on March 27, 1915. He was raised on a farm outside town by his mother Esther Lockwood (Shannon). At the age of 7, he was taken by his mother to St. Louis, the first of many trips to that town, but this trip was a brief one and they soon returned South to live near Helena. Robert recalled growing up in Marvel, Helena, Memphis, & St. Louis. “Most of my schoolin’ was in Helena. And I dropped out of school when I was about 14, 13 ‑ something like 13, 14 years old. Started to work and try to take care of my mother.” His mother struggled to make ends meet as a cook for a white family, and Robert dropped out of school in 7th grade, finding work in the cotton fields and levee camps. He also started playing music as an additional way to make money.
Robert Lockwood Jr at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival
Recalling this time, Robert stated “That’s when I started to learn to play. Yeah. I was about 13 1/2 years old. During that time I was doin’ farm work. Going out with the cotton chopping trucks, cotton picking trucks‑things like that. But the women wasn’t makin’ no money at that time. Females worked for $3 a week and that kind of shit.... Whenever I could get a job, I’d make around $9. About $9‑10 a week. That was a lot of money at that time.”
Robert didn’t recall a lot of music around the area growing up. “ There was people who was trying to play but, I don’t know. I just didn’t find too many guitar players interesting. I didn’t have no desire to play no guitar. I Thought I was goin’ be a piano player.” Asked if there were a lot of good piano players he answered “There wasn’t a lot. But the piano, you could very well play it by yourself without any help. And that’s what I always wanted when I was beginning-to not have to depend on anybody to help me. As the years passed, I got used to trying to put things together and I got used to help. My ambition was at first to play by myself. But I found it a little boring and dull as the years passed ‑ running all over the world by yourself. I done that for about 10 years, you know about 10 or 11 years, or longer.”
Robert Johnson was the impetus for Robert Lockwood becoming a guitarist. “He was my teacher.” Recalling how he met Johnson, he stated “Oh Robert met my mother. He followed my mother home. He hung around there for, oh, a couple of months. I guess. And my mother at first felt like he was too young but Robert could talk that way‑back talk. He didn’t look like he was no older than me. But I guess he was about 4 or 5 years older than I am. But I met Robert through my mother. And when he found out I was so interested in music, he finally decided to teach me. So, I’m very grateful about that cause my very first beginnin’ was not bad.”
At the 2005 Pocono Blues Festival
Lockwood recalled that Robert Johnson was a “very good musician.... I never heard Robert try to play nothin’ like nobody else. Really I wondered where did he get his understandin’ and style from. I never heard nobody play like him.... Oh you can listen to his records today and you don’t hear nobody playin’ like him but me. Nobody but me.” When I asked about Johnny Shines Robert stated, “Johnny Shines come close. Johnny Shines do pretty good, but he doesn’t play like Robert. So I teaches Johnny Shines every time I see him. Well, we grew up together. You know that.”
Robert recollected travelling with his mentor. “I went quite a few places with Robert ... quite a few. But Robert usually liked to travel alone. That was something else that I didn’t quite understand. But he carried me to Mississippi with him two or three times and he went up into some parts of Arkansas ‑ Eldorado, Arkansas, Camden and different places. I made about three trips with Robert.” Robert remembered some of the other musicians playing at the time. “Oh there was quite a few people down there that’s been gone a long time now. There was a dude called Son Kelly, and one called Stormy Weather. There was two brothers ‑ the Britt brothers, Jim Britt and W.B. Britt. All these people had help. I mean there was always two guitars ‑ one playing lead and the other one playin’ background you know.”
Many of the musicians that would be a vital part of the Chicago blues of the 1950s and 1960s were in Memphis. Robert knew Big Walter Horton in Memphis in the thirties and was the first one to take Walter away from home. “Walter was playin’ what was bein’ recorded. Wasn’t nobody recordin’ then but Big Bill, Peetie Wheatsraw and Lonnie Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Memphis Minnie. Walter was playin’ better then he do now.” When I asked Robert what was better about Walter’s playing then. “I don’t know, just seemed like [he was playing better] . . . maybe it was like a kind of new experience to me. Maybe he wasn’t, you know. But he was playin’ like hell then. See Walter and I had left Memphis and went down into a levee camp and came back with so much money Walter’s mother thought we’d done robbed somebody. Yeah, I picked Walter up in Memphis and carried him with me. And brought him back home. He could play. Walter was always a loner, too. You never see Walter, see him with nobody.”
Robert remembered Howlin’ Wolf. “Howlin’ Wolf? Yeah. When I first started playin’ Howlin’ Wolf was trying to play guitar. I used to run into Howlin’ Wolf when we were both runnin’ up and down the road. Howlin’ Wolf was tryin’ to play the guitar then. I didn’t know nothin’ about him playin’ no harp until ... I went down there, it was just after ’40, after ’41. I went back down South and he had a band in West Memphis and was playin’ the harp. I said, “Well I’ll be doggone.”
It was Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) who first took Robert Jr. to Mississippi. “I met Sonny Boy through Robert. Robert was always in Mississippi ‑ well Robert’s home was in Mississippi too. And Robert was steady goin’ to and from Mississippi and he would run into Sonny Boy and I think they would play some together. And Robert was steady tellin’ Sonny Boy about me. And as the years passed, Sonny Boy finally came to Helena looking for me. He came over and begged my mother to let me go to Mississippi with him. She never wanted me to go to Mississippi, but he finally convinced her. And she told me to go ahead. And I’d been goin’ all up and down the road by myself, you know, but she just didn’t want me to go in Mississippi. Well, Mississippi was pretty bad then on Blacks. And I went to Mississippi with Sonny Boy, and we made a lot of money. $100 was a lot of money then.”
Robert Lockwood Jr honored with Lifetime Achievement Award at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival by Larry Hoffman
This was around 1936 or 1937. Sonny Boy wasn’t calling himself Sonny Boy at the time, but rather called himself “Boy Blue”. People were also calling him “Rice.” When John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson started making records, Rice Miller started calling himself Sonny Boy. “And Big Sonny Boy could play Little Sonny Boy’s material better than he could play it. So, the way I understand it, they knew each other somehow, but Little Sonny Boy got a chance to make those records. And I think he was a good song writer, Little Sonny Boy was. Both of ‘em was.... Anyway I remember when Little [Sonny] Boy came to Helena. Well when he came to Helena I had played with him. I played with Little Sonny Boy in 1938‑39.... 1939 and a part of 1938, played with Little Sonny Boy in St. Louis. We used to play a lot of house parties. So in 1942 he came to Helena. Well, the word had got around that Sonny Boy Williamson was down South. He came down there and they talked about it and Little Sonny Boy got on the same station ‑ KFFA. And he stayed on that station for about two months. And that really confused the people. Oh man, I’ve seen some things man."
Robert joined the King Biscuit Time radio show in 1941 a few months after it started with the second Sonny Boy. “I went down after I recorded those records for RCA Victor. And I went down and Sonny Boy grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I stayed with Sonny Boy down there for about two years. And me and the owner of King Biscuit Time, we never got along too well ‑ he’s still living‑ and so I finally split. Well what was really happenin’, then, they wasn’t payin’ nothing. But the publicity was gettin’ us a lot of work. Me and Sonny Boy was playin’ seven nights a week, you know. And those road engagements was really payin’ off, you know.” Responding to my observation that life on the road must have been rough, Robert Jr.. stated, “Nah, it’s not rough when you like it. You know, you just have to like it. You have to like it. There are a lot of people who don’t like it who just be out there for the money. Then it goes kind of hard with them so that’s why they get on all these old different kinds of drugs and dope and stuff‑ to be able to work.”
Longtime Lockwood band member, Maurice Reedus
By the late thirties Robert Lockwood was living and playing in St. Louis, a rich blues community which at the time was the home of Peetie Wheatstraw, Sonny Boy Willliamson I, Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams, Lonnie Johnson, Dr. Clayton and others. It was with Dr. Clayton, that Lockwood got his first chance to record. “Well Dr. Clayton‑ ton and me and John Lee Williams, which was Little Sonny Boy, and Peetie Wheatstraw and Walter Davis and Elijah Williams and Booker T.. Washington - we all was runnin’ around there in St. Louis - playin’ on the street corners and different little towns in Illinois, you know, and Dr. Clayton and me would sit down and share ideas with each other. And we both was writing songs, you know. So Clayton had been to Chicago and he kept tellin” me, he said, ‘Well, let’s go to Chicago.” So I had a job parking cars, I was working at the Ninth and Chestnut garage. And I got that job down there and kind of got myself together‑ I bought me a lot of clothes, bought me a brand new instrument, and bought me a union card. So when we came to Chicago we came to Chicago to record for Decca. The talent scout was J. Mayo Williams and Mayo Williams was out of town so . . . during this process we ran into Lester Melrose and Lester Melrose and Mayo Williams was racin’ over talent, because at that time, the black musicians, blues singers, they wasn’t paying them a goddam thing ‑ you know about 15% of 1¢ royalty.... That’s what they promised you, know. So anyway, Dr. Clayton and me, I think we got better from Melrose than anybody else. Clayton really got paid ‑ he really got some money out of it. See well, I got $900 for playing with Clayton and for doing my own session. And at that time they was only paying $12.50 a side for a record and then a session was called two records. So that meant you made $50 for a recording session But I told Melrose to forget about the 15% and, oh, he hollered. He didn’t want to give me that much money. He told me, ‘I could record 10 people for what l’m payin’ and you’re askin’ for.’ But what made him record me was I told him, I said, ‘I didn’t come here to record for Victor in no way, you. I’ll just wait until Mayo Williams comes. And he didn’t want Mayo to get me. Oh, we went through a pretty bad time cause he was telling me that he didn’t know whether my material was goin’ to sell or not and ‘I’m taking a chance.’ And I started naming all the dudes who was playin’ for him which was Big Bill, Tampa Red and Johnny Temple.”
Both Big Bill and Tampa Red should be relatively well known to most blues listeners. Jackson, Mississippi born Johnny Temple may not have been a great instrumentalist but was a rather prolific recording artist of the thirties and forties. Robert kidded me about not knowing Temple’s biggest record, “Well, his best record was ‘Big Leg Woman.’ I can’t see how you missed that. But Johnny Temple and those dudes who was playin’ those guitars ... and Melrose, he really didn’t dig me too much because I’m kinda of straightforward about saying what I think. When I think I’m right, I mean you got a problem ‘cause I’m not goin’ be givin’ in, you know. So he was tellin’ me about how he didn’t know whether my stuff was gonna sell or not and I told him, I said, ‘You can line all them sons of bitches you got ‑ that play by themself ‑ and I’ll just walk right through them. I play what they play and play what they don’t play.’ And he really didn’t like that either. But he wouldn’t let me go. He wouldn’t agree and let me record for Decca. So he finally come up with the contract and I recorded for him.”
Robert recorded four selections that were released: Take a Little Walk With Me, Mean Black Spider, Gonna Train My Baby and Little Boy Blue. With the exception of Train My Baby, the songs became blues standards that were recorded by countless other blues artists. Muddy Waters recorded Take a Little Walk With Me for the Library of Congress and his reworking of Mean Black Spider as Mean Red Spider was among Muddy’s first recordings for Chess Records. Robert gave songs to Muddy and others including Glory for Man which Sonny Boy II recorded as All My Love in Vain, Elevator Blues for John Lee ‘Little Sonny Boy’ Williamson and That s All Right for Jimmy Rogers.
Video of Robert Lockwood Jr.
After the Bluebird recordings, Robert moved back down to Arkansas, joining the King Biscuit Time show with Sonny Boy. He remembered other musicians. “WelI in Helena there was Willie Love and Dudlow. That dude, he was nicknamed, was Robert Taylor. And Starkey Brothers. The Starkey Brothers used to be with me ‑ they was part of my first band. And a dude who used to live in Marianna named Jim Leake ‑ he had a string band. And an old man called Poppa Crump that played piano very good. And there’s somebody else who I know real good and I can’t think of him for nothing.” Robert formed his first band with the Starkey Brothers after leaving King Biscuit Time and started his own show for Mother’s Best Flour, a competing company to the Interstate Company that sold King Biscuit Flour and Sonny Boy Corn meal. This band was a much jazzier group than the band with Sonny Boy. As Robert Palmer chronicles in his excellent book, Deep Blues, Robert Lockwood was one of the first amplified guitar players in the Delta region and exerted considerable influence on numerous musicians including the late Joe Willie Wilkins who was one of the other guitarists that was associated with Sonny Boy and King Biscuit Time, the Murphy Brothers, Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, Louis Myers, Freddie King, and very significantly B.B. King.
When I first met Robert, he mentioned the fact that he had been working with B.B. King at the outset of B.B.’s career, trying to help B.B. work on his time while working with B.B. as a sideman. Frustrated with B.B.’s apparent inability to pick up on this aspect, Robert wanted to quit but B.B. cajoled him to stay a while longer, and when he left told the record company that was going to record B.B. to use a big band to help cover some of B.B.’s timing mistakes. It was almost two decades after Lockwood left B.B. King’s band before B.B. hired another guitarist to play in his band, so deep an impression Robert left with the Blues King.
In the early fifties Robert moved to Chicago where he would stay until the early sixties. In Chicago he became a major part of the blues scene there, recording Dust My Broom for the J.O.B. label a few months before Elmore James’ classic recording, along with Aw Aw Baby (a version of Sweet Home Chicago) and the jazzy Sweet Woman from Maine as well as established as a session player on recordings by Sunnyland Slim, drummer Alfred ‘Fat Man’ Wallace, pianist Eddie Boyd and others. While none of these records were heavy sellers, they stand up today as small gems of postwar Chicago blues. They have been reissued on a Flyright CD, Johnny Shines & Robert Lockwood which also contains Johnny Shines earliest recordings.
When Louis Myers left Little Walter’s band, the Jukes (or the Aces), in a money dispute, Robert replaced him and ended up working with Walter for several years. Robert once told the story of travelling in the south with Little Walter, and they came across some place where the pace had a sign saying that Little Walter was playing. This fact was news to them, and they had problems convincing people there that Little Walter was the real Little Walter.
Another video of Robert Lockwood Jr.
Robert was a mainstay of the Chicago recording scene, being on numerous sessions for Chess Records until the sixties when Buddy Guy assumed a similar role. Robert’s carefully placed chords and immaculate sense of timing perfectly complemented Walter’s hard driving harp solos, Eddie Boyd’s uptown band blues or Rice Miller’s wry vocals. Robert also did sessions with Muddy Waters, Floyd Dixon, Willie Mabon and the Mooglows for Chess. In 1961 Robert Jr.. travelled with Otis Spann and St. Louis Jimmy Oden to record for Candid Records. At the time, the classic album Otis Spann is the Blues with four vocals each from Spann and Lockwood along with two instrumental from Spann. Lockwood once expressed his belief that the album should have been with a full band, yet there can be little disputing the superb playing by both, with Lockwood’s guitar being a perfect compliment for Spann’s piano. A small glimpse of what might have been with a full band was two songs Spann recorded for Chess with Lockwood, Walter Horton, Willie Dixon and Fred Below that were not even known to exist until they turned up on Japanese import some ten years ago, Chicago Pianology, presenting two powerful examples of classic Chicago blues.
Shortly after returning to Chicago, Robert went to Cleveland with Rice Miller to play a club called Gleason’s for a short gig. While the second Sonny Boy left Cleveland after about nine months, Robert settled in to what has become his home town and raised his family with his wonderful wife, Annie. Musically, he remains active and doesn’t rest on his past laurels or reputation; still writing songs and still developing his music as when he started focusing on a twelve string guitar over a decade ago. He has made a number of fine albums. His Delmark album Steady Rolling Man is on vinyl or cassette, while his two Trix albums, Contrasts and Does Twelve are unfortunately out of print as is a wonderful Live in Japan that he recorded with the Aces. Similarly hard to find should be two albums he collaborated with Johnny Shines that were on Rounder. More recently he recorded an album for the French Black & Blue label Plays Robert & Robert on which he played an acoustic 12 string guitar. This album was recently issued on cassette. Most recently he recorded the fine What’s the Score on his own Lockwood label which also spotlights second guitarist Mark Hahn and harmonica player Wallace Coleman, as well as show that Lockwood is the ideal blues accompanist. While some will go to se Robert initially because of the connection with his stepfather, (Robert Johnson), after hearing him they’ll understand why Bob Dylan was picking up a few pointers from him a decade ago. He is a Giant of the Blues.
This originally appeared in The DC Blues Calendar and Jazz & Blues Report, likely in 1991 or 1992,
Trombonist Chris Barber has been a mainstay of the British trad jazz scene for over five decades. With Lonnie Donegan he helped lunch the skittle music scene with ‘Rock Island Line,’ while his own band backed numerous legends including some from the world of blues and gospel. Not long ago he came across some old 1/4 inch magnetic tapes of some of the legendary blues artists he brought over to England in the 50 and 60s. The result are three volumes, Chris Barber Presents The Blues Legacy: Lost and Found Series (MVD Audio).
Volume 1 opens with Barber introducing Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the legendary gospel singer and guitarist. When she arrived in England with her arrangements from her days with Lucky Millender’s Big Band, Barber and his combo was flustered, but were able to back her on a variety of her classic sacred repertoire including Every Time I Feel the Spirit, Didn’t It Rain, Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air, and Old Time Religion, with the backing provided by barber and his band matching the exuberance of her performance if the overall sound of the performances occasionally sounds messy and chaotic. This Train, is performed solo with some fine guitar featured and her effectively dramatic vocal. Vocalist Ottilie Patterson joins her for one of two renditions of Old Time Religion, and When the Saints Go Marching In. The rest of this volume is devoted to performances by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee who mostly perform without a band and are in typical form for the two opening with Midnight Special, Climbin’ on Top of the Hill (a reworking of Sitting on Top of the World), the remarkable harmonica feature Fox Chase, How Long How Long Blues, another harp solo Callin’ Mama Blues, and Betty and Dupree. While the repertoire will be familiar, these concert performances are strong ones. Also included is an joyous duo version of When the Saints Go Marching In, followed by Little Light of Mine, on which Barber and band and accompaniment although playing somewhat more restrained here. Chris Barber and Band close with another gospel number with Ottilie Patterson taking the front stage.
Volume 2 opens with Chris Barber’s contemporary recollections of the 1958 recordings by Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry that open this volume. There is a nice duo of Poor Man Blues, while Ottilie Patterson takes lead on the vocal backed by Barber and the duo on When Things Go Wrong, and How Long Blues. Barber provides another spoken introduction to the performances by Muddy Waters with Otis Spann presented here, which he noted was an amazing experience. Muddy and Spann were terrific and Barber’s band does a credible job in support although the drummer on several tracks is a bit stiff and tad heavy handed. Repertoire played included Hootchie Kootchie Man, Blow Wind Blow, Baby Please Don’t Go, Long Distance Call, I Can’t Be Satisfied,Blues Before Sunrise (an interesting to hear Muddy refer to this as originally made by a friend of his before he died), and Walking Through the Park. Muddy goes solo on ‘Rolling Stone,’ and revisits ‘Feel Like Going Home.’ Spann is exceptional while Barber and the band try to be unobtrusive in supporting Muddy, who certainly sounds fine here. Perhaps not indispensable, these tracks are a nice addition to Muddy’s discography in any event Next up are fine three tracks by Champion Jack Dupree including a nice Christmas blues, a humorous lament about his mother-in-law, and his own very distinctive rendition of Tampa Red’s When Things Go Wrong. The disc closes with a 1962 performance by the great Louis Jordan with whom Barber’s traditional jazz band provides nice support for a nice duet between the saxophonist-vocalist Jordan and Ottilie Patterson on T’aint Nobody’s Business. There is a nice mix of performers and some genuinely good performances on this volume.
Sonny Boy Williamson opens the final volume, Volume 3, with some performances from 1964. Barber mentions the great shows presented by Lippman and Rau which led to his performance that opens with United Blues/ Help Me as the band plays the melody before Williamson enters with his harp and launches into the song. Then Barber recalls some of the performances of him including some jazz songs like ‘C-Jam Blues,’ as well as staples of his repertoire as So Sad to Be Lonesome, his reworking of Robert Lockwood’s Take a Little Walk With Me, Bye Bye Bird, Your Funeral, My Trial, and Pontiac Blues. Like Brownie and Sonny, he closes his set with some gospel songs, Saints, and This Little Light of Mine, with Ottilie Patterson sharing the vocal.’ The music does get a bit chaotic but still remains fun with the joyful sound and Sonny Boy’s harp blends well with the trad jazz backing. Jimmy Witherspoon came over in 1964 and played at a festival Barber helped organize, and Spoon sounds terrific on his first trio of tunes, although the backing remains a bit rough on Times Getting Tougher Than Tough, and Roll ‘Em Pete. The backing behind Howlin’ Wolf with Hubert Sumlin seems a bit tighter as Wolf howls through Howlin’ For My Darling, Dust My Broom, and May I have a Talk With You. Sumlin sounds really good if a bit underamplified while Wolf’s vocals are ferocious, and the backing band almost sounds like a urban blues band as opposed to a Dixieland group. Jimmy Witherspoon has five more vocals to close this set, and the backing is a bit more together here as he reprised Everyday I Have the Blues, and When I’ve Been Drinkin’.
There are some very good performances on all three volumes although I give the nod to those on the latter two volumes. One would be hard-pressed to call any of these essential but fans of Muddy, Sonny Boy, Wolf and Spoon will especially find performances that may merit their consideration.
I recently received a double CD in commemoration of Chris Barber’s 80th Birthday which I hope to write-up shortly. I noticed that I had never posted this review of three blues-related CDs by this important English musician and music evangelist. This review originally appeared in the July 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 306). I likely received my review copy from a publicist.
Born in Tylertown, Mississippi in 1907, Jewell ‘Babe’ Stovall learned music from his brothers and other musicians near Tylertown and included songs from the church as well as string band traditions, and around 1930, the legendary Tommy Johnson came around Tylertown where he got the basis of Big Road Blues. Eventually he moved to New Orleans where he sang on the streets and based on Marc Ryan’s urging, was booked in Boston and Cambridge in 1965 where he and Ryan stayed with David Evans in Evans’ Harvard dorm room.
Evans contributed the liner notes to a new Arcola release of Stovall, The Old Ace, and notes that his repertoire is that of a songster. Included are some familiar blues and gospel numbers including Candy Man, Baby Let Me Follow You Down (which he learned from Bob Dylan but to which he added some traditional verses and Evans suggests also was influenced by Professor Longhair’s 1957 Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand), The Ship is At the Landing, and Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
There are renditions of Sonny Boy Williamson’s Good Morning Little School Girl, Jim Jackson’s Kansas City Blues and Leroy Carr’s How Long How Long Blues. Included are some interviews where he talks about family and playing in new Orleans and a medley of Tommy Johnson’s Big Road Blues with Careless Love, in which Johnson’s influence can be heard and felt. Bob West produced these recordings in New Orleans in 1968 and Stovall strongly played his National guitar and sang with verve although he was a bit hoarse for a latter session issued here.
Stovall was not exactly overecorded. Larry Borenstein recorded him in 1961 which was issued on Flyright on vinyl and I do not believe it has become available on cd. Also he recorded for Prestige Bluesville if I remember correctly. These are frankly as good of recordings as I heard him play and the accompanying booklet with Evans notes and some great pictures, including one of him playing with the guitar over his head makes for a most enjoyable set of down home acoustic blues like you do not hear anymore.
This review originally appeared in the May-June 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 282). I believe I purchased this CD which should still be readily available. One can check www.arcolarecords.com.
In light of my retrospective of some of the music of Robert Lockwood in the past few weeks, I thought it might make sense to republish my obituary of him that appeared in the December 2006, Jazz & Blues Report. I knew Robert some 36 years, first interviewing for the Case Western Reserve University student paper in Fall, 1970 and having him on my blues show on WRUW. I had the pleasure to see him perform numerous times over the next thirty five years, in a variety of contexts including several memorable performances at the Pocono Blues Festival and at the Ponderosa Stomp backed by his long-time bassist, Gene Schwartz. One mistake in my review is suggesting Lockwood’s “Aw Aw Baby” may have influenced Roosevelt Sykes. Sykes recording of “Sweet Old Chicago” probably was earlier and also, as Bob Koester notes in an interview on Blues Revue’s website with Don Wilcock, includes a verse that is not in most renditions of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Koester also notes the song's origins predate Scrapper Blackwell’s “Kokomo Blues.”
Robert Lockwood, legendary and highly influential bluesman, passed away Monday November 21 at the age of 91. Born in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, near Marvell, Lockwood started playing a pump organ when at the age of 11 a traveling blues performer named Robert Johnson started a dalliance with Lockwood’s mother. Johnson showed Lockwood some stuff on the guitar and while still a teenager started playing around the Delta region with Johnson, Aleck Rice Miller (better known as Sonny Boy Williamson), Johnny Shines, Elmore James and others. For a period he lived in St. Louis, where along with blues singer, Dr. Clayton, he traveled to Chicago. In Chicago, he he backed Doctor Clayton and also made his initial recordings for Bluebird that included songs that became blues standards such as “Little Boy Blue,” “Take a Little Walk With Me” and “Mean Black Spider.” That latter number, retitled “Mean Red Spider,” was the first commercial recording of one Muddy Waters.
Robert Lockwood at 2005 Pocono Blues Festival
He returned to the Delta region and joined up with Miller for a new radio show, King Biscuit Time, that was broadcast at lunchtime and was heard throughout the delta region. Lockwood was one of the earliest electric guitarists in the south so his play- ing inspired numerous performers including B.B. King and Muddy Waters. Lockwood left King Biscuit to do his own broadcast for a competing company, Mothers Best Flour, backed by the Starkey Brothers, a jazzy band with horns in which Lockwood could expand his musical repertoire to include the big band and jump numbers that could be heard on radio and in juke boxes. He was an admirer of Charlie Christian among others and songs such as “Exactly Like You” and “Chinatown, My Chinatown” were also numbers that were part of his repertoire (as well as that of Robert Johnson) busking on the streets.
Later Lockwood mentored BB King, trying to get King to improve his timing. King’s timing was so bad, that Lockwood was among those who told Bullett Records to have King record with horns to cover his bad timing. Eventually Lockwood ended in Chicago where he became a session musician for a variety of labels appearing on classic Chicago blues recordings by Eddie Boyd, Willie Mabon, Baby Face Leroy Foster, Floyd Dixon, Sunnyland Slim, and most notably Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter. He also recorded “Dust My Broom” before Elmore James did but Mercury sat on this record- ing and did not release it until later. His J.O.B. recording, “Aw Aw Baby” was perhaps the version of Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” that led to recordings by his good friend, Roosevelt Sykes and latter renditions by Junior Parker and Magic Sam that helped establish this as a blues anthem.
Robert Lockwood Being Honored at Pocono Blues Festival
by Blues Scholar Larry Hoffman with Lifetime Achievement Award
But the bulk of his work was supporting other artists and his marvelous chord work and single note runs behind Williamson and Little Walter were integral to these classic blues recordings. Lockwood toured with both and it was with Sonny Boy Williamson that he came to Cleveland in 1960 to play the legendary club, Gleason’s. He never left Cleveland and lived for the rest of his life there. 1960 was also when he was part of the legendary sessions that led to the classic Otis Spann albums, Otis Spann is the Blues and Walking the Blues.
During the sixties and early seventies he played local clubs while working delivering prescriptions for a pharmacy or as a painter. He was called on stage at the 2nd Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1970 which was followed by his first solo album, Steady Rolling Man for Delmark where he was backed by the Aces. He recorded a number of very fine albums for several labels with the two Trix albums, Contrasts and Does 12 both standing out. By the late seventies, he had stopped playing his Gretsch Chet Atkins model for a 12-string guitar and continued trying to come up with new sounds and songs at an age where many would retire or recreate past glories. He recorded a couple of fine albums with Johnny Shines for Rounder, although a severe stroke suffered by Shines limited the extent of the collaboration. He was honored with Handy Awards, induction into the Blues Hall of Fame and in 1995 President Clinton presented him with a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment For the Arts.
Lockwood’s influence on blues guitar is under appreciated. Guitarists Louis Meyers, Matt Murphy, Eddie Taylor and Luther Tucker are among those Lockwood touched in the fifties and sixties and more were influenced in latter years. Bob Dylan reportedly asked Lockwood to show him some tips on how to play some of Robert Johnson’s songs.
I was fortunate to know Robert for over 35 years. Some folks meeting him could view him as arrogant, but if they checked out what Robert told them they would discover he was simply stating facts. I found him quite engaging with a very dry, wry sense of humor, and someone I am pleased to have known and had interviewed on several occasions. His death coming on the heels of Ruth Brown’s passing is another great loss for the blues community. The sweet sound of his playing still resonates in my head and I will miss him as a performer and a person.
I took the photos that are part of this blog entry.
“The Blues Box” is a 7CD compilation of a variety of mostly downhome blues that has appeared on the Scandinavian Storyville label over the decades. The recordings were made by touring blues artists and mostly date from the sixties and early seventies and include some of the most important artists alive at the time. The overwhelming majority of these recordings are solo or duo, or in a few cases there are small groups. the overall flavor is intimate recordings although using the word intimate with a rambunctious barrelhouse performer like the great pianist Speckled Red seems like an oxymoron.
One complaint in a written review I have seen is that they should have included the complete Storyville Recordings of the artists presented (they may have done so with respect to Lonnie Johnson). I do not disagree with that assessment, but can also appreciate the sense of bringing together a wide group of performers as they have done here. I should point out that some of the recordings by Lonnie Johnson, Otis Spann, Roosevelt Sykes, Sippie Wallace and Sleepy John Estes have been issued in the United States after being licensed from Storyville. I am not sure what may be currently readily available stateside although I believe Roosevelt Sykes and John Estes sides may be on CD reissues on Delmark.
Here is a brief summary of what you get here. CD One provides 13 sides by Lonnie Johnson, accompanied by Otis Spann on all but one with a remake of “Tomorrow Night,” and a mix of blues and ballads. there are also 8 excellent performances by Spann including a terrific “Trouble in Mind,” where Johnson backs him as well as a nice rendition of Johnson’s “Jelly Roll Baker. CD Two features 13 terrific piano blues by Speckled Red with his barrelhouse renditions of “The Dirty Dozen,” and “St. Louis Stomp,” along with Sunnyland Slim’s eight strong tracks including moving renditions of his Aristocrat single “Johnson Machine Gun,” and Leroy Carr’s “Prison Bound Blues.” Both pianists often provide brief spoken introductions that enliven the superb performances. CD Three brings together recordings by two of the greatest blues pianists Roosevelt Sykes (9 selections including a remake of “44 Blues”), and 5 tracks by Little Brother Montgomery and the two of them provide accompaniments to 8 of the nine excellent Sippie Wallace vocals. Sippie accompanies herself on “Up the Country Blues.”
CD Four shifts the focus to blues guitarists with 10 energetic and exuberant Delta blues by Big Joe Williams whose “El Paso Blues,” is clearly inspired from “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Kokomo Blues.” Sleepy John Estes and his long-time associate Hammie Nixon are heard on 7 songs with Estes crying vocals and Nixon’s sympathetic harmonica with “Diving Duck Blues,” being a highlight. the final 7 selections are by Robert Pete Williams in his mesmerizing style. CD Five has the earliest selections here, live 1956performances from Copenhagen’s legendary Club Montmartre by Big Bill Broonzy as well as 6 1964 recordings by John Henry Barbee, a solid if unspectacular bluesman influenced by Broonzy among others turning in a rendition of “Dust My Broom.”
More piano is featured on CD 6 which opens up with 11 selections by Memphis Slim including a nice “Fattening frogs For Snakes.” Champion Jack Dupree performs seven selections, some solo and some with a small group including Leroy Carr’s “Blues Before Sunrise.” Eddie Boyd and Jay McShann each have three selections. Boyd reprises “Five Long Years,” while McShann performs “Kansas City Blues,” which is credited here to Little Willie Littlefield and not Lieber & Stoller. Littlefield has long claimed to have written the song (originally issued as “K.C. Lovin’” on Federal) and sold it to the more famous duo. CD Seven shifts the focus to harmonica (well not entirely) and 9 recordings by the second Sonny Boy Williamson, some with Matt Murphy’s guitar and Memphis Slim’s piano of which the quasi-autobiographical “The Story of Sonny boy Williamson perhaps demonstrates his surreal blues poetic lyricism. The remaining 10 selections are by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and are strong performances by the pair.
There is also a bonus DVD which open with some excellent vintage and intimate performances by Champion Jack Dupree and Sonny Boy Williamson. Then there are performances by Robert Lockwood, Jr., James Booker, Henry Gray, Boogie Bill Webb & Harmonica Slim, and Cousin Joe that are excerpted from a series of videos recorded at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans that I believe were filmed around the time of the ill-fated New Orleans World Fair.
There is a generous amount of music in the box with the bonus DVD. The performances are never less than good and many are exceptional and provide a wide variety of musical performances and styles.
Its been sixty years ago that John Lee Williamson, best known as the original Sonny Boy Williamson, was murdered. His death left a major impression on his fellow Chicago musicians and was a topic many volunteered to Paul Oliver when he visited the United States in the early 1960s and interviewed many blues musicians. One of those affected by Sonny Boy’s death was William ‘Billy Boy’ Arnold, who as a youngster met and given a lesson by his idol. Now Arnold pays tribute to the blues pioneer on his new Electro-Fi recording, “Billy Boy Sings Sonny Boy,” performing 14 songs of Williamson and three originals that are very much in the same style. Backed by a band that includes Billy Flynn on guitar and mandolin, Bob Stroger on bass and Willie Smith on drums, with Mel Brown guesting on both piano and guitar, Arnold revives such well known blues that Sonny Boy made popular like ‘Half-a-Pint’ (‘Sloppy Drunk Blues’), ‘Good Morning Little School Girl,’ ‘Cut That Out,’ and ‘Sugar Mama,’ along with such choice numbers as ‘Mellow Chick Swing,’ ‘Polly Put That Kettle On,’ ‘Black Gal Blues,’ ‘Tell Me Baby,’ and Billy Boy’s own ‘Squeeze Me Tight,’ which sounds based on Sonny Boy’s ‘Rooted Groundhog Blues’. Arnold brings a relaxed vocal style and his harp playing still shows his indebtedness to Sonny Boy’s choked, crying style. Listening to his direct delivery of the ironic ‘Decoration Day Blues,’ on which Sonny Boy lamented the death of a girl friend. The irony was Williamon was murdered on Decoration Day. Another fine performance is the lively ‘Polly Put the Kettle On,’ with its easy swing and a swinging solo by Flynn that evokes Willie James Lacey who played on many of Sonny Boy’s latter recordings. Stroger and Smith keep the backing simple and Brown’s guitar and piano fills out on several tracks the understated, but most effective backing throughout. Arnold’s heartfelt love of Sonny Boy is evident throughout and the backing complements his own delivery resulting in this very charming and moving musical remembrance.
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