Larry Garner Baton Rouge

Larry Garner
Baton Rouge
Verve / Gitanes

| recall some statement by one of the new hot-shot teenage ‘blues’ guitarists out there responding to the question of how can he play the blues given his lack of experience by responding that it was hard being a teenager. Whether one takes this as another sign of the dumbing of America, one notes that while this act might get written up in People Magazine or whatever and be hyped by one of the Blues Brothers, that modern day minstrel act, Larry Garner, perhaps one of the most gifted singer-songwriters in the blues world today, can’t get his new Verve-Gitanes album, Baton Rouge, released in the United States. Available only overseas, | was lucky to find a copy.

Like his previous recordings have evidenced, Garner is able to draw on his experiences working in a chemical plant and raising his family and the experiences of others in his community to spin his stories and songs, whether singing about the Juke Joint Woman, or an addiction to video poker in New Bad Habit, with nice horns added. Musically, there is a similarity to the blues of Kenny Neal, although one might call Garner a bit leaner and more laconic in his attack. Garner is joined here by Larry McCray who adds his very insistent guitar and joins Garner with vocals on a couple of songs, including the amusing Blues Pay My Way, where Garner notes how he can’t fail as a musician or when he returns to the chemical plant, everyone will joke “We told you so,” and Airline Blues, where the two trade memories of missing their planes. The conversational quality of Garner's lyrics and musical approach unquestionably helped make it sound like the two had played together for years. 

Garner's back porch philosophizing hits strongest on The Road of Life, while he matches his anti-drug lyric about no one overdosing on the blues to a reggae groove on High on Music. The title song, Go To Baton Rouge, closes this album and is a travelogue about where to find the blues in Louisiana, and as he says, “Come to Baton Rouge if you are looking for the blues.” 

This is an album that deserves to be heard and made available in the US. Whether Polygram (corporate parent of Verve-Gitanes) will change its mind is unlikely, but at least they can make this an easier to find import.

This review originally appeared in the July-August 1997 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 223). I likely purchased it. As I type this blog entry, it is available although one might need to check out vendors of used records. Here is Go To Baton Rouge.

Slim Harpo: Blues King Bee of Baton Rouge
Martin Hawkins
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press
2016: 416pp

Its has been over 45 years since James Moore, aka Slim Harpo, passed away at the age of 45. It was a tragic early death for a blues performer who had just started crossing over to a broader National audience and about to go on his first European visit. Last year Bear Family issued a 5-CD box (near 7 hours of music), "Buzzin' The Blues," and Martin Hawkins, who wrote the book that accompanied that came with that set, has written a  biography of the short-lived, but influential, artist that takes us from his youth to the aftermath of his passing.

Hawkins traces not simply Slim Harpo's life, but provides the background both in terms of his ancestry and the history of the rural part of Baton Rouge that Harpo was born in. In addition to tracing his youth and development as a musician, he gives an overview of the blues and Black Music scene in the region along with the context of the segregated society. Emerging first as Harmonica Slim, his growth as a musician is set against the burgeoning swamp blues scene centered with Crowley, Louisiana producer Jay Miller as well as the more general context of small label Louisiana music.

Jay Miller had been recording folks like Lightnin' Slim before Harpo came to record with Slim. It was Miller who hanged his performing name to Slim Harpo and Hawkins traces the recording career of Moore, including his frustrations with Miller at times along with the commercial success that Harpo had on Excello. These frustrations led to a session for Imperial that was squelched by Miller and eventually to Harpo recording directly with Excello after a contract had expired, a factor that led Miller to discontinue his relationship with Excello.

In addition to fully tracing Harpo's recordings, he also describes the various clubs and performances Harpo made, including the ill-fated trip to Chicago made with Lightnin' Slim, Lazy Lester, Katie Webster and others that was the subject of a talking blues from Slim. Slim was popular on the southern fraternity circuit as well as playing Black and White clubs in Baton Rouge and playing armory shows with swamp pop acts like John Fred, or R&B shows with Bobby Bland and others. Included is a discussion of the live recording, that was originally issued on Ace in the UK and later in the Bear Family box, as Hawkins provides details on how the recording came to happen, how it was preserved and then considers the music from that live recording of him in his prime.

Towards the end of his career, he was just starting to break into the 'hippie circuit,' and Hawkins describes Harpo's time performing at Steve Paul's The Scene in New York City and similar performances, and he was about to tour Europe when he tragically died. Hawkins goes into some of the circumstances that likely contributed to the rupture of an artery that killed him, likely resulting from working on a car and something heavy falling on his chest.

Hawkins fills out a portrait of Harpo as a family man who was far from the stereotypical hard drinking blues artist some might have, He also worked at various employments to help sustain his family. In addition he interweaves Harpo with other members of Baton Rouge's blues scene (and the swamp blues scene in general) and artists such as Tabby Thomas, Lonesome Sundown and Lazy Lester have their music and careers discussed.

There is a full discography of Harpo's music along with a listing of recordings of other Baton Rouge artists, recommended listening and reading and a musical appreciation of Slim Harpo by Stephen Coleridge. Hawkins made use of existing interviews of Harpo as well as interviewed surviving members of his band, family members and others to provide this detailed, fully researched, yet highly readable account of a major blues artist whose career seems to been overlooked in recent years. Along with the Bear Family reissue, this superb biography certainly will help reestablish his reputation as a major blues original.

I purchased this. Here is Slim Harpo's recording of "Shake Your Hips," a song still popular with blues groups.