The late Nap Turner, was a Washington DC institution. A musician, actor, community activist, Nap’s hosted jazz and blues radio programs for several decades on WPFW (with his mantra of “Don’t Forget the Blues”) as well as performed blues showing a considerable Percy Mayfield influence. A regular feature of his radio programs would have him read the Simple stories of the great Langston Hughes. In 1996, Nap and jazz vocalist Ronnie Wells, produced a cassette of him reading several of the Simple stories backed by a quartet of Turner on bass, Charlie Hampton on piano, Sonny Forriest (the one-time Ray Charles guitarist) and Lenny Robinson on drums. This was issued on a cassette Hughes’ Views of the Blues, that was sold at Nap’s gigs but long unavailable.
Subsequently Wayne Kahn recorded Nap part of his documentation of the DC area music scene and issued a selection by Nap on the essential anthology, The Blues You Hat to Lose Volume 1, which launched his Right on Rhythm label. Subsequently Wayne issued two well received CDs of Nap Turner, one of which included two more of the Simple stories. They discussed issuing all of the Hughes material Nap had done, but Nap passed away too before they could realize this dream.
With Nap’s beloved wife Gloria working with Wayne, Right on Rhythm has just issued Nap Turner Presents Hughes Views of the Blues, bringing together the seven stories presented on the cassette, the two stories on an earlier cd and Naps introduction and two more stories from a performance at a now closed DC club, Smokeless. There is a richness to Turner’s baritone and carefully paced delivery of these timeless stories. Hughes wrote about the folk of everyday lives in the African-American community and these stories rang so true to them and there is so much about their shared experiences here, which undoubtedly is what attracted Turner to them, yet their is plenty of humor and commonsense and love that the characters have for each other that should be readily understandable to most. It is marvelous to have this available.
While a live recording of Nap singing the blues is available at the store at www.rightonrhythm.com, this is not listed on that website but is available from cdbaby.com. I likely received a review copy from Right on Rhythm. This review appeared originally in the April 2006 D.C. Blues Calendar. Nap died in 2004 and I was privileged to have known him. He was an advocate for jazz and blues as well as an accomplished singer and radio personality. I bring this CD to your attention if by chance you are not aware of it.
The performance here (about 70 minutes of music) was the first after a European and Japanese tour and was recorded by Wally Heider who was a pioneer in location recordings of the time. This release includes 7 previously unissued performances that were not included in the original 1964 album release, adding nearly a half hour of unissued performances including renditions of One Mint Julep, Georgia on My Mind, That Lucky Old Sun, In The Evening (When the Sun Goes Down), Busted, Two Ton Tessie, and My Baby (I Love Her, Yes I Do), to go along with such numbers associated with Charles as I Got a Woman, You Don’t Know Me, Hide Nor Hair, Hallelujah, I Love Her So, and What I’d Say.
Of course its a terrific band (Charles’ jazz piano chops are displayed on Swing a Little Taste) with Fathead and Hank Crawford getting solo space, and terrific section work and swing. And its nice to hear Charles at this stage as he was expanding his repertoire, but had not relegated many of his early R&B classics to brief treatment as part of a medley so we get strong renditions of I Got a Woman, Hallelujah, I Love Her So, Don’t Set Me Free, and What’d I Say, along with more recent additions to his repertoire as You Don’t Know Me, Margie, and Georgia On My Mind. And Ray still was front and center with the blues with the terrific In The Evening, and dig Charles’ terrific blues piano at the beginning. Material-wise, the only misstep is Two Ton Tessie, which was likely from some forgettable show, but Charles still puts everything into the performance.
Bill Dahl contributes his usual insights in the accompanying booklet and the sound quality is excellent. Live in Concert is an welcome addition to Ray Charles’ discography. There is some simply terrific music here, capturing “The Genius” at his prime.
My review copy was provided by Concord Records.
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