Vaneese Thomas Blues For My Father

Vaneese Thomas
Blues For My Father
Segue Records

The youngest daughter of the legendary Rufus Thomas, Vaneese Thomas, like her sister Carla and brother Marvel, have been involved in the music business dating backing to singing back-up vocals for Stax. After college she relocated to New York where she was a session singer and songwriter. She has issued several albums that showcase her singing and songwriting, and the latest is “Blues For My Father” (Seque Records). It had been five years since her last album, “Soul Sisters Volume 1” (Segue Records), where she resurrected classic soul recordings from the likes of Bettye Swan, Tina Turner, Etta James and her sister Carla. This new recording, as indicated by the title, has her delving more into blues and she contributed ten originals and also handles two covers, one of which is from her late father.

Produced by Thomas and her husband Wayne Warnecke, there is a variety of musicians appearing on this, but the core is Buddy Williams on drums, Will Lee on bass, Robbie Kondor on piano and Tash Neal on guitars with Warnecke on percussion. There are appearances by (among others) Marvel Thomas and Paul Shaffer on organ, Ron Mathes and Jeff Mironov on guitars, horns led by Tim Ouimette and Perry Gartner and Shawn Pelton on drums.

What stands out on “Blues For My Father” is Thomas’ vocals. Rob Bowman, who penned the liner notes, mentions “Vaneese’s masterful control of phrasing, breath, intonation and timbre.” In other-words, she can flat out sing with a display of vocal dynamics as well as power to leave a strong impression on the listeners. She belts out about having the blues while sitting at the station waiting for the train to bring her lover back on the opening “Southern Central Blues.” Then she gets sassy celebrating her man who plays no tricks and “10 X The Man You Are.“

The Memphis funk of “Wrong Turn” is a delightful duet with sister Carla (while Marvel adds organ) with some punchy horns in the backing and a crisp guitar solo from Jeff Mironov. “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” has a bit of southern rock feel as Tash Neal is on dobro with Mironov again on guitar. Part of the melody here is evocative of the Ricky Allen recording “Cut You Loose,” although her lyric is telling her man to wrap his arms around her and never let go.

The centerpiece of this release is a duet with her father Rufus, “Can’t Ever Let You Go.” Like Natalie Cole did with her recordings with her deceased father, Vaneese adds her vocal to the original Rufus Thomas recording. Husband Warnecke pulled out Rufus’ vocal from the original analog masters, added some exhortations from other Thomas recordings, then provided a contemporary backing, and guitar and sax solos along with Vaneese improvising around her father’s vocals.

Other highlights on this set include “Corner Of Heartache And Pain,” a straight, slow blues about the pain felt after her man left with Paul Shaffer on organ. “Love’ Em And Leave’ Em Behind” is a soulful number where Vaneese tells a heartbreaker she has seen her friends in too much pain, but he won’t do the same to her. “Southern Girl” is a celebration of her roots and the south with Kirk Whalum taking the sax solo. There is also a straight cover of John Fogerty’s “The Old Man Down The Road” before the disc closes with a wonderfully sung lament, “Blue Ridge Blues” backed simply by Rob Mathes’ guitars.

“Blues For My Father” is a showcase of Vaneese Thomas’ craft as a songwriter and her soul-shaking vocals and should have considerable appeal among blues and southern soul audiences. 




I received my review copy from a publicist. This review originally appeared in the November-December 2014 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 357). I recently reviewed her most recent recording, The Long Journey Home.

Here Vaneese is performing at the 2015 Pennsylvania Blues Festival.

 

Vaneese Thomas Sings Blues For My Father

The youngest daughter of the legendary Rufus Thomas, Vaneese Thomas, like her sister Carla and brother Marvel, been involved in the music business dating backing to singing back-up vocals for Stax. After college she relocated to New York where she was a session singer and songwriter.

She has issued several albums that showcase her singing and songwriting, and the latest is “Blues For My Father” (Seque Records). It had been five years since her last album “Soul Sisters Volume 1” (Segue Records), where she resurrected classic soul recordings from the likes of Bettye Swan, Tina Turner, Etta James and her sister Carla. This new recording, as indicated by the title, has her delving more into blues and she contributed ten originals as well as handles two covers, one of which is from her late father.

Produced by Thomas and her husband Wayne Warnecke, there is a variety of musicians appearing on this but the core is Buddy Williams on drums, Will Lee on bass, Robbie Kondor on piano and Tash Neal on guitars and Warnecke on percussion. There are appearances by (among others) Marvel Thomas and Paul Shaffer on organ, Ron Mathes and Jeff Mironov on guitars, horns led by Tim Ouimette and Perry Gartner and Shawn Pelton on drums.

What stands out on “Blues For My Father” is Thomas’ vocals. Rob Bowman, who penned the liner notes “Vaneese’s masterful control of phrasing, breath, intonation and timbre.” In other words she can flat out sing with a display of vocal dynamics as well as power to leave a strong impression on the listeners. She belts out about having the blues sitting at the station waiting for the train to bring her lover back on the opening “Southern Central Blues.” Then she gets sassy celebrating her man who plays no tricks and “10 X The Man You Are.“

The Memphis funk of “Wrong Turn” is a delightful duet with sister Carla (while Marvel adds organ) with some punchy horns in the backing and a crisp guitar solo from Jeff Mironov. “Wrap You Arms Around Me” has a bit of southern rock feel as Tash Neal is on dobro with Mironov again on guitar. Part of the melody here is evocative of the Ricky Allen recording “Cut You Loose,” although her lyric is telling her man to allow her to be strength for him and "wrap your arms around me and never let go.”

The centerpiece of this release is a duet with her father, “Can’t Ever Let You Go.” Like Natalie Cole did with her recordings with her deceased father, Vaneese adds her vocal to the original Rufus Thomas recording. Husband Warnecke pulled out Rufus’ vocal from the original analog masters, added some exhortations from other Thomas recordings, then provided a contemporary backing and guitar and sax solos along with Vaneese improvising around her father’s vocals.

Other highlights on this set include “Corner Of Heartache And Pain,” a straight, slow blues about the pain felt after her man left with. Paul Shaffer on organ. “Love’ Em And Leave’ Em Behind” is a soulful number where Vaneese tells a heartbreaker she has seen her friends in too much pain but he won’t do the same to her. “Southern Girl” is a celebration of her roots and the south with Kirk Whalum taking the sax solo. There is also a straight cover of John Fogerty’s “The Old Man Down The Road” before the disc closes with a wonderfully sung lament, “Blue Ridge Blues” backed simply by Rob Mathes’ guitars.

“Blues For My Father” is a showcase of Vaneese Thomas’ craft as a songwriter and her soul-shaking vocals and should have considerable appeal among blues and southern soul audiences.

This review was written in Fall 2014 and appeared in issue 361 of the Jazz and Blues Report (issue 357). She will be appearing at the Pennsylvania Blues Festival this coming weekend (July 26). Here she is performing live.

B.B. King: The Life of Riley

B.B. King: The Life of Riley (Emperor Media/MVDVisual) is a documentary film by John Brewer that traces the King of the Blues career from his days growing up as a poor Black in Mississippi to his present iconic musical stature reflected by the countless awards he has received including the Kennedy Center Honors and the Polar Music Prize. The film is narrated by Morgan Freeman and incorporates interview clips from King, childhood acquaintances, music peers, and contemporary rock artists who have been influenced by King’s music, particularly his guitar playing.

The documentary traces Riley King from his very humble beginnings growing up in a plantation economy to his emergence as a major rhythm and blues artist to the period of crossing over and his current status as a musical icon. There are interviews which those who knew B.B. when he was growing up along with folks who played a part in his emerging career including Rufus Thomas, Joe Bihari (who produced so many of B.B.’s greatest recordings for the Modern group of labels) and Robert Lockwood as we get the picture of the plantation youngster who develops his musical skills, becomes a music personality and becomes a consistent recording star while starting a grind of hundreds of touring dates a year that he only is starting to slow down from today.

The film takes us from these humble beginnings to his iconic status today as his crossover from the Chitlin Circuit to the mass market is detailed with discussions of his signing to ABC-Paramount; the recording of The Thrill Is Gone; the performance and recording of Live at Cook County Jail: his participation in the legendary concert associated with the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle; other recording sessions including those with Leon Russell and members of the Crusaders; and his collaborations with Eric Clapton and U2. In addition to appreciations from a various pop-rock luminaries including Clapton; Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi; Kenny Wayne Shepard, Carlos Santana, Slash and others, there are a variety of performance clips including some from his appearance on Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual TV show, and some from a recent DVD of a concert at Royal Albert Hall (I cannot recommend the DVD from this performance). Also included is a clip of King receiving the Polar Music Award (the equivalent of a Nobel Prize) from Swedish King Gustav.

There is little, if anything, about King’s very successful collaboration with Bobby Bland in the mid-70s (and a clip from Soul Train of the two would have been quite enjoyable). Also, while some of B.B.’s band members are interviewed, one wishes that they had interviewed folks like Ron Levy (who played piano with B.B. in the 1970s (he was with B.B. King in Africa) and whose stories about playing with King would have been enlightening). Also in lieu of, or in addition to, the rock stars, it would have been illuminating if more performers of color, such as his contemporary Lloyd Price (who would have insights on the African concert that Price helped organize), and contemporary guitarists such as Vernon Reid and James Blood Ulmer, had been asked for their insights with respect to B.B. King’s influence and legacy. Extras in the DVD package include a portion of the  Royal Albert Hall concert and some interviews with some of the rock stars who appear in this documentary. Life of Riley is a well put together documentary that the general audience should enjoy, although long-time King followers will be not fully satisfied with it.

I received a review copy from the MVD Entertainment Group. Here is a trailer for the film.

Johnnie Taylor Took Care of Homework at the Summit Club

Originally supposed to appear at the Watts Summer Festival that was memorialized in WattStax: The Living Word, Johnnie Taylor was recorded a couple days later at a Los Angeles club that has been just issued on Stax, Live at the Summit Club. While three of the performances had been previously issued, there are six previously unissued selections.

As Lee Hillebrand notes, Taylor had put much of his blues repertoire in mothballs after the 1968 success of Who’s Making Love, but as Rufus Thomas notes in his intro of Taylor, “When you speak of blues, this is a man who knows ‘em from the letter A to the Letter Z.” And despite band miscues at the start and plenty of ragged edges, Taylor opens with a storming rendition of Take Care of Your Homework, where he advises men to take care of things at home ‘before your good thing is gone,’ followed by one of Taylor’s two classic Stax blues, Little Bluebird, where Taylor demonstrates what a great blues singer he was, and followed by a ragged intro of the great blues ballad, Steal Away, as Taylor says “we’re gonna set this groove here.”

I Don’t Want to Lose You is a terrific love ballad, followed by Who’s Making Love, where he gets the audience involved in a call and refrain. Hurry Sundown is another signature Taylor slow blues with great lyrics and followed by a stronger rendition of Steal Away. The album closes with Taylor’s hot soul workout on Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone, ending over an hour of hot buttered soul-blues.

A very welcome that is part of the celebration of Stax’s 50th Anniversary and the labels reactivation.

This review originally appeared in the April 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 292). I received a review copy from a publicist for the label.

Here is Johnnie performing Little Bluebird a few years before he passed away.

Memphis Gold's Story Part 2

Memphis Gold at JV's (Annandale VA)
mid 1990s. Photo © Ron Weinstock

In August 2009, Joe Kessler and I had a chance to interview Chester Chandler, the blues performer known as Memphis Gold for the Dutch publication Block. This interview was translated into Dutch for publication, but we have felt it would be helpful to have the interview in English. Joe transcribed it and left our questions out.  This is the second of several parts that will be running the next few days. I should point out that interviews with Memphis Gold have appeared in Jefferson Blues, Blues & Rhythm and Living Blues.

Church was pretty much my first recollection of music. My grandfather and father were musicians. My father had twelve sisters and brothers who played steel guitars and other things. They had the Chandler Band out of Bells Tennessee. They used to get their instruments at the general store. What was so great about that is my father said he used to be able to go in there and get anything he wants on his father’s name. “Oh, you’re Dan Chandler’s boy. Get what you want.” So they would get mandolins, violins and all these instruments of the day. I heard my older uncles and aunts play piano. They (the Chandler Band) played music that was a little rag-timish. The Tennessee string band music they used to play was not like the Mississippi music. Maybe like the jug band music, maybe like Gus Cannon. My dad said he knew Yank Rachell and others who played around Tennessee.

Memphis Gold's father on piano and others in Church.
Photo © Memphis Gold

They used a lot of open tunings (on their stringed instruments) like Robert Wilkins. I did too. I started playing a lot in open tuning, E tuning (tuned to an E chord). My father played in the family band and a lot at church.

Once a year, the people from the Church of God in Christ in other cities would converge in Memphis for 30 days - even people from the other chapter in California. Preachers and musicians would go 24 hours a day for a month. I went to school in the day and every night at ten o’clock, that’s when Rev Utah Smith came. That was his time. He would come in with wings, two wings, with the Sisters behind him. (Starts singing) “Two Wings … heaven gonna be my home.” Two Wings is the Gospel Tune I used to hear.

Cover of Lynn Abbott's book-cd of legendary
evangelist and guitarist Elder Utah Smith

Rosetta Tharpe and the Mattie Moss Clark Sisters would come in. Mattie Moss Clarke was a young woman at the time but that’s how the The Clark Sisters started out of Detroit. They had a piano for her (at the church). Sometimes she would play and sometimes my dad would play for her. My dad liked to play the Fender bass though; that was his main instrument. He liked the stand-up bass and he played a lot like Willie Dixon. He always had his own bass and took it home after church – it was all nicked up. 

Anytime I wanted to play it in church, they would put me up on a stool, and I could stand up and hit those strings “boom boom boom boom…” and keep the time.

I don’t think my father played anywhere but in the church. I think because he had a great conversion after losing one of his children. I could hear the influence even in his piano playing. They called ‘em templing (?) keys, a little ragtime type feel.

At home, I would listen to the gospel hour on WDIA early in the morning. As the day progressed, they started playing BB King’s music and all the secular music. I heard Honeymoon Garner and Rufus (Thomas) as DJs. We could catch Randy out of Nashville too (Randy out of Nashville really means We could catch WLAC out of Nashville too. WLAC had programs by John R and others sponsored by Randy's Records of Gallatin, TN). When the Beatles came out (I was about eight) my young friends and I would sing “She Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah.” A lot of my brothers and sisters were too old. 

Eight of us siblings are still alive, eight out of fourteen. My oldest sister is 84, she is the oldest of the fourteen. Four boys and four girls are left.

My father was making his living as a tree surgeon. My mother was a house maid and house wife. She worked for a lot of rich white people. I used to get a lot of passed down clothes and shoes. I can remember when I would have to go to school with cardboard in my shoes (covering) where I wore out a big hole. Some of the kids mother’s then, in the 60’s, were getting to be teachers. Black folks were getting to be a little more educated in my town. My parents were getting to be so old though that I didn’t know anything else. I burned wood, I went to the woodshed. I burned coal. I didn’t know anything else; I was an old soul. 

There was a park in front of my house that was over 200 yards long and 60 or 70 yards wide. The police would come by in old Mayberry cars and throw us out. The white kids would say to us “come on over and play football with us.” We’d get over there and start playing and all of a sudden the police were kicking us out. The park was just across the street but when you crossed the street in our neighborhood, that was the white side. The other side was Orange Mound. Orange Mound, where I come from, is one of the oldest black communities in the United States where people owned their homes.

I would get kicked out of the park and then the rock (or brick?) throwing started. When I was a kid, we would do some devilish stuff. The cops would come by, this is around ‘65 or ’66, and we would throw rocks. We would knock the cops off their motorcycles. It was getting crazy you know?

I was an average student and had a lot of general street knowledge and old sense. When I was ten, my father was 60 and his friends like Robert Wilkins were 70s or 80s. I graduated 12th grade and went to church so much that I used to tell myself that when I ever grow up, I’m never going to church again. When church would start, they would literally be praising god until 1 or 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. I would go to the last bleacher and go to sleep. Many nights, they would close the church up with everyone wondering where I’m at. I’m up under the last bleacher. One night they had a funeral. At that time they used to leave the body overnight in the church with two little bulbs, light they would leave on over the casket. I woke up and saw this casket with the lights and went (racing) to the front door. I was always hiding out and nobody would find me.

My father showed me church music. It was Dan Norman, Robert Balfour’s brother-in-law, who starting showing me stuff like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. He had to have played with Muddy because the stuff that he played; I knew that they had to have some type of connection. My mother would say “Dan, don’t be showing that boy all that devil music.” She never wanted me to play blues but I was picking up little boogie tunes you know. Dan Norman (who was showing me) was born 1917. My father was older than him, he was born 1905. Norman and Muddy were about the same age, both born in 1917. That’s my earliest guitar playing. Every morning he would come to work with my father because he was my father’s ground man. Early morning about 6 o’clock or something, before I would go to school, he would pick a guitar or I would play a little something. He had a guitar that he would bring to my house but my father finally bought me a guitar down on Beale Street where there was Nathan’s Pawn Shop. The first guitar I got might have been from$75 to 90 dollars when I was about six.

Addendum: My memory may be failing me as I thought we discussed the Church more, but maybe it was Memphis and me talking before Joe came with the tape recorder. Anyway Memphis himself responded to an email, ""Yes Utah was a great influence on my playing! I used to sit under him and my father at the Holy convocation each year along and play for Sister Arizona Dranes in the early sixties! I was about 6/7 playing mandolin myself and guitar! I would spend a whole Month playing as the convocation then went 30 days! every nite around ten o'clock he would start two wings and the Saints would shout until late in to the nite! I loved going with my father, even though I would have to go to school the next day! I would see sister Rosetta Tharpe come and play also, She would have Mason Temple jumping!"

(To be continued)

Wynonie Shouts the Blues, Sun Ra plays them

Fred James has been putting out a number of collections of classic rhythm and blues recordings from Nashville on the German SRV Blue label. Bullet Records Rhythm & Blues is the second reissue in this series of the important Nashville label. It focuses more on jump blues and blues shouters. It opens with four selections by one of the greatest shouters, Wynonie Harris, and in addition to his vocals, these recordings include the first recordings of pianist Herman ‘Sonny’ Blount (better known as Sun Ra). These recordings may have also had Mr. Harris on drums. A few years later Mr. Blount would be leading a band in Chicago and emerge with his unique and influential big band. While these recordings will be of historical interest for that fact, there is plenty more here for fans of jump blues and blues shouters. Fred James speculates that its tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate’s band backing Max Bailey whose tune includes an exhortation to the troops on Drive Soldiers Drive. Alto saxophonist Sherman Williams’ selections feature pianist-shouter Skippy Brooks who would later be a mainstay in Nashville for Excello. He is heard strongly singing six strong tracks including Baby Don’t You Want to Go, a reworking of Kokomo Blues, a song that was the model for Sweet Home Chicago. Two tracks by The Bobby Plater Orchestra feature members of Lionel Hampton’s Orchestra backing a young Rufus Thomas, while Doc Wiley’s two tracks include a hot jump instrumental and the more philosophical Play Your Hand with Wiley’s strong piano and a nice vocal. A few cuts are more in the vein of Mills Brothers styled harmony, and fill out what is an exceptional reissue that will be of special interest to fans of blues shouters.