John Dee Holeman Says You Can’t Win All the Time

One can certainly appreciate the work of Tim Duffy and the Music Maker Foundation. The Foundation’s efforts to assist and promote mostly southern rural musicians certainly have benefited a number of musicians. They have also made available recordings by a number of artists, although these vary considerably in quality. North Carolina bluesman John Dee Holeman is one of the artists that has fallen under the Music Makers Recordings umbrella with his latest CD, You Got to Lose, You Can’t Win All the Time.

Holeman, a veteran Piedmont bluesman who learned from Blind Boy Fuller, has been honored by the National Endowment of the Arts with a Heritage Fellowship. This album was produced by Zeke Hutchins, who plays with country artist Tift Merritt, and essentially has him mostly reworking a variety of down home blues standards from the pens of Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sleepy John Estes, Memphis Minnie and Lowell Fulson. While credited to Holeman, the title track is a slowed down version of an Ike Turner song that was recorded for Cobra with Tommy Hodge handling the vocal. In additions to Hutchins, others heard in the backing band include Duffy and Cool John Ferguson on guitars, and Slewfoot on harp. Several tracks have backing vocals.

This is at times entertaining but oftentimes somewhat anonymous, down-home flavored performances of the songs. This type of small group down home blues deriving from the recordings of the likes of Muddy Waters and Lightning Hopkins has been done more compellingly by the likes of Lightnin’ Slim on Excello or Louisiana Red for a variety of labels over the years. Proceeds of this does support the Foundation’s worthy efforts, but otherwise this only gets a reserved recommendation. For more on the Music Maker Foundation and its various programs and recordings, check www.musicmaker.org.

This review originally appeared in the August 2008 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 307) and I likely received my review copy from Music Maker Foundation. Incidentally there are several other recordings by Holeman available from the Music Maker Foundation so check out their website. Here is a video of him performing When Things Go Wrong.

Big Boy Henry's Carolina Blues

North Carolina bluesman, Richard ‘Big Boy’ Henry is among the blues artists that have been assisted with the Music Maker Relief Foundation. Music Maker Recordings has issued a delightful disc by this Patriarch of the Carolina Blues, Beaufoot Blues, that was produced by Lightnin’ Wells and Tim Duffy.

Henry’s contributions are limited mostly to vocals as Wells, Duffy and Michael Parrish provide backing for most of the tracks. Wells plays wonderful slide (suggesting Bukka White) on a rousing John Henry while the simple guitar of Parrish and Duffy enhance Henry’s vocal on Old Bill, a nice piece of storytelling about the killing of his rooster. Moan&Cry has some outstanding fingerstyle playing from Wells as Henry asks his woman to rock him. Duffy’s rolling guitar is wonderful behind Henry on Vellevina.

Big Boy’s son, Luther is accompanied by Wells on a warmly sung Tell Me What to Do followed by Big Boy’s a cappella vocal on Nina Mae. Pleading with his woman to tell him what’s on her mind, Henry accompanies himself on Turn the Key, telling his woman to turn the key and let Big Boy ride in her automobile and on Walking Day &Night, where, Parrish adds some low key piano in support of Henry’s enjoyable playing. Sandwiched between those tracks is Beautiful City, a gospel blues associated with Rev. Gary Davis.

One might wish Henry played a bit more, which is not to fault the wonderful accompaniments he receives through, but the strength of this release is the wonderful heartfelt singing of Big Boy Henry who is a wonderful storyteller and who invests all these performances with heart and honesty.This may be hard to find but you can obtain from some mail-order outlets as well as from the Music Maker Relief Foundation at its website, www. musicmaker.org, see http://www.musicmaker.org/artists_profile/Big-Boy-Henry

This review appeared in the April 2003 DC Blues Calendar, then the DC Blues Society’s newsletter. I may have purchased this CD.

The Blues Doctor Cures The Blues

I have written about the Music Maker Relief Foundation several times (such as here) and the activities they undertake on behalf of blues and other musicians in need. MMF has compiled a substantial body of recordings by its associated artists and among the latest CDs they have issued is Hallelujah Boogaloo by Drink Small, who is known as “The Blues Doctor.” The Blues Doctor label drink uses in part is a reference to his ability to play a variety of styles. After all, he grew up in the church (first recording as part of a gospel group) as well as learning Blind Boy Fuller tunes. It also refers to his ability to make you feel good by his playing the blues.

Drink Small is among the Music Maker Foundation Artists that has a significant body of recordings for having recorded for a variety of labels including Ichiban and his own Bishopville label (referring to South Carolina hometown). The present CD was recorded by Tim Duffy between 1997 and 2005 by Tim Duffy. It contains 11 songs and clocks in at just under 45 minutes. These are solo performances and cover a wide range of material and while all the songs are credited to Drink Small, some are not such as Blind Boy Fuller’s “So Sweet” and “Blues By the Drink” which is a revamped “Baby Please Don’t Go.”

There is a gregarious quality to Drink Small’s performances that is evident throughout, whether on the opening “Widow Woman” with a folk-tinge, to his exquisite rendition of Fuller’s So Sweet, as well as his Song With No Name, where he references Howlin’ Wolf and howls and moans. His language can get raunchy at times as on Moanin’, which is definitely not radio friendly or simply descriptive as on Woman Love a ManThat Can Play The Slide. His guitar playing whether in a Blind Boy Fuller mode as on So Sweet or playing slide, is thoughtful and crisply executed . The vigor of his performances and the varied material makes for quite an enjoyable recording.

I obtained this as part of my Givin’ It Back Record Club membership which includes a quarterly CD release as a premium for my donation to MMF, but also can be acquired on its own from MMF at musicmaker.org.

I am writing this a week before the Music Maker Foundation hosts on Monday March 14 Capitol Blues Night at Clyde’s, at Gallery Place in Washington DC. Only a limited number of tickets are available for this fundraiser for Music Maker Relief Foundation. There will be musical performances by Captain Luke, Ironing Board Sam, Big Ron Hunter, Mudcat, Bubba Norwood and Sol, the event offers an evening of diverse and feet-stompin’ music and in addition to the phenomenal entertainment, tickets will include beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres. Go to musicmaker.org for more details on the event and how to order tickets.

Guitar Gabriel & the Music Maker Foundation

I first became acquainted with Tim Duffy when he was a folklorist as well as promoting a cassette of a downhome blues musician named Guitar Gabriel. It turned out this Guitar Gabriel was a person who had recorded a marvelous album I had as Nyles Jones, called “My South/ My Blues” on an obscure Pittsburgh label, Gemini. The music was small group downhome blues that displayed the influenced of Lightning Hopkins and Blind Boy Fuller, with a strong rendition of “Betty and Dupree” as well as “The Welfare Blues” where he told his woman “what in the world are you gonna do, when the welfare turns their back on you.”

Locating Guitar Gabriel was at the beginning of what would be the Music Makers Foundation, an organization Tim and his wife Denise formed to provide assistance primarily for musicians in southern roots music traditions. Assistance has run from purchasing instruments, arranging for medical care, helping with housing, booking for concerts and festivals, production of CDs for artists to sell and other similar activities. It has been an activity that has attracted the support of many (such as this writer) including well-known musicians Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, and Eric Clapton.

In its early years, the Music Maker Foundation issued some releases through an arrangement with a major US label, and veteran producer Mike Vernon was involved with some releases if I recall correctly. More recently, the Music Maker Foundation has released recordings on its own. In the course of its activities, it has documented the music of many artists and issued new recordings of artists that more commercial labels would never attempt to do, and also the process of manufacturing CDs has gotten cheaper so small batches of recordings can be produced as needed. These releases range from informal packages with simple cardboard covers and links to the web for liner notes to fuller CD packages with a full CD cover and a liner notes booklet.

MMF has not eschewed totally working with commercial labels, and in recent years has licensed material for release overseas on the French DixieFrog label with commercial distribution. Tim Duffy was in Washington DC recently where we discussed over lunch the ongoing work of the MMF and after lunch handed me a copy of a CD/DVD release from 2009 on Dixie Frog by Guitar Gabriel entitled “The Beginning of The Music Maker Story.” The CD is dedicated to Guitar Gabriel and includes 21 songs, most of which were recorded in the early part of the 1990s but also included are two selections from his 1970 album, “Ain’t Gonna Let No Woman,” and “The Welfare Blues.” These tracks sound like they were dubbed from copies of the vinyl lp. The rest come tapes and some of these performances which likely have been previously been released on cassette tapes or CDs by Gabriel. {Since I wrote this Tim Duffy has advised me that the majority of the tracks were previously unissued}.

The CD here has over seventy minutes of music and serves as a fine document of Guitar Gabriel’s music. His father was Sonny Jones who hung around and recorded with Blind Boy Fuller, one of the great Piedmont bluesmen of the thirties (a big influence on John Cephas, John Dee Holeman and others), and these Piedmont roots are evident throughout the performances here which range from talking blues, a gospel number sung with his brother. There are wonderful renditions of familiar folk-blues like “Betty and Dupree” and “John Henry” showing that he remained a facile guitarist able who had lost little in the two decades since recording “My South/My Blues.” Tim Duffy is present on many of these tracks as a second guitarist with other folks like pianist Michael Parrish, and fiddler Sam Duffy joining in. His voice may not be as flexible and able to reach the high notes as he was in 1970, but he remained an expressive vocalist and story teller.

Tracks of special note, in addition to the two reissued from 1970, include “Wahoo Rap,” a talking blues about an elixir he used to pitch in his younger days to cure whatever ails one; “Started Out This Morning,” with some agile guitar; the lively cover of “Going to New York”; the terrific fingerpicking on his rendition of “John Henry”; the charming “Old Man Rivers” with his narrative and some flugel horn added by Mark Levinson; “I Got the Right to Cry Sometimes,” with his spare electric guitar employing an atmospheric tremolo; “Baby Please Don’t Go” done as a string band performance with sam Duffy’s violin adding color; and “Done Got Tired,” with Tim Duffy adding slide-guitar, has a swamp blues tinge in the deliberate guitar and gravelly vocal from Gabriel. One other track to note is“You Got To Watch Yourself” that might seem like a genially sounding talking blues except for Gabriel’s expletive filled recitation and vocal. It is definitely not safe for broadcast. A few bum notes perhaps, and some source material is rough, but this stands as a wonderful testament of Guitar Gabriel’s music

In addition to the CD, the DVD contains the film, “Toot Blues: The Story of the Music Maker Foundation,” a film directed by Chris Johnstone that includes oral history from Tim and Denise Duffy and others involved in MMF over the years along with clips of performances, and in a casual setting, of many of the performers (some have passed on such as Guitar Gabriel) and provides an insight into how the programs of assistance MMF makes started an evolved. One consequence of the MMF’s programs that was not initially intended was the community that has formed among the musicians who have been assisted and who have gone from neighborhood performers playing for friends and neighbors to touring the world, singing their blues, country, folk and other musics to folk in Europe and South America. One really appealing scene is in Argentina where the MMF musicians are scene playing with Miguel Botofogo, who has fanned the blues flame for decades himself. A marvelous documentary that explains what Music Maker Foundation does better than mere words.

Together this is a terrific package although MMF may show this as I write this as out-of-stock at their website, http://musicmaker.org/, in fact they have copies and this should be in their web-store when you check. The music is available on itunes and available from Dixiefrog, http://www.bluesweb.com/p_home.php3?id_rubrique=2, and other European sources. Hopefully Music Maker Foundation will have this back in stock soon as it is a terrific package.

I received this from the Music Maker Foundation.

Cocktail Boogie Captures Delightful Pianist

The Music Maker Foundation (www.musicmaker.org) is a marvelous organization that is devoted to helping preserve some of America’s southern music traditions and the persons who perform them. It notes as its mission to help the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day to day needs. We present these musical traditions to the world so American culture will flourish and be preserved for future generations.

MMF accomplishes this through three programs: Musician Sustenance- grants to meet basic life needs and emergency relief; Musician Development - grants and services for recipient artist professional development and career advancement; and Cultural Access - supports the preservation and proliferation of American musical traditions. It puts together tours of its artists, it records and documents the lives of these performers, as well at meets immediate needs of its performers.

Mr Q as Tim Duffy looks on

The driving force behind the MMF is Tim Duffy a folklorist, that I first was in contact with around 1991 when he was issuing recordings by one Guitar Gabriel. What was amazing was this individual was a gentleman that had recorded a superb album of down home blues for the Gemini label in the 1970s that was under the spell of Blind Boy Fuller and Lightnin’ Hopkins. His efforts at recording and promoting some of the treasures of the southern blues and other traditions led to the creation of the Music Maker Foundation and over the years MMF has issued over 100 albums of music that document many artists who are have made few recordings. The albums are of uneven quality but there are many gems and recordings by Beverly Watkins, and Jerry McCain played significant part in the revival of their performing careers. Then there was Etta baker, who chose to stay home rather than travel to Newport in 1957, but whose guitar playing is on the level of Elizabeth Cotton. Many of these performers played neighborhood bars or simple house parties.

One of the recent releases is by a pianist, Mr. Q. A slip in the very simple cardboard cover for the CD, “Cocktail Boogie,” says liner notes are downloadable and one should be able to get a pdf file. The biographical information from Tim Duffy of the MMF notes that Mr. Q was born in 1913, and that this self taught pianist fashioned his own sound by mixing the piano styles of Art Tatum, Earl Hines and Oscar Peterson, interspersed with songs by the Ink Spots. After graduating North Carolina A&T in the ‘30s; after finishing school he started his career by traveling and performing with Blanche Calloway’s orchestra as a singer. At some point Mr. Q migrated to Harlem and got a job playing the harmonica with the Savoy Sultans, the house band at the Savoy Ballroom. He sang at tables at local nightclubs. He went to all-night jam sessions where he witnessed the legends of the day perform- legends such as Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson. In 1963, he returned to Winston-Salem and became a fixture performing at piano bars.

The music on “Cocktail Boogie” was recorded by Tim Duffy in 1991, 1992 and 1993, after he had been introduced to Mr. Q by Guitar Gabriel. Mr. Q was always dressed in a perfect suit and thought highly of himself as a musician; his entire life, he had made a living with his music. Mr. Q was a regular member of the early Music Maker Revue with Willa Mae Buckner, Macavine Hayes, Preston Fulp, Jahue Rorie and Guitar Gabriel. He also played the Blues to Bop festival with John Dee Holeman. He died of natural causes in 2000 so did not live to see his music released.

“Cocktail Boogie” may not be an essential piano blues-jazz recording, but still is a delightful collection of piano bar performances. Particularly on vocal tracks, the piano sounds a bit muffled. Mr. Q sings a range of uptown blues (“Everyday I Have the Blues,” “What’d I Say,” and “Juice Headed Woman”), pop standards (“(Left My Heart In) San Francisco,” “You’’ Never Know,” and “Thank-You Pretty Baby”), and several instrumentals (“title track, “Mr. Q’s Blues, “Mood Indigo,” and Begin the Beguine”). Despite the muffled audio quality, Mr. Q displays an agile style whether handling a boogie or a more complex melody and while not a great singer, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had a significant regular local following at the time Tim Duffy made this recordings of him.

“Cocktail Blues” is an enjoyable collection of urbane piano performances with blues roots. This can be ordered at the MMF’s website on the store page and as I write this is among the Foundation’s most recent releases. it is also available on itunes through the website. The website has much more information on the MMF and its activities.

I received this CD from Music Maker Foundation as a member of MMF’s Givin' It Back Record Club, one of the various membership categories for supporters of the Music Maker Foundation.