Sunday, July 08, 2018

*When The Sun Goes Down, Indeed!- The Blues Back In The Days

Click On The Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tommy Johnson Performing The Politically Incorrect (Right?)"Big Fat Mama Blues".

CD Review

When The Sun Goes Down: The First Time I Met The Blues, various artists, BMG Music, 2002


In the course of the past year or so I have highlighted any number of blues CD compilations as I have tried to search for the roots of the American musical experience, and in the process retraced some of the nodal points of my own musical interests. I never tire of saying that I have been formed, and reformed by the blues so that when I came upon this “When The Sun Goes Down” series (a very apt expression of the right time for playing the blues) I grabbed each copy with both hands. In one series, the producers, as an act of love without question, have gathered up the obscure, the forgotten, the almost forgotten and the never to be forgotten voices that “spoke” to me in my youth and started me on that long ago love affair with the blues. I have hardly been alone on that journey but it is nice to see that some people with the resources, the time, money and energy have seen fit to honor our common past. Each CD reviewed here, and any future ones that I can get my hands on for there are more than the three I am reviewing today, is chock full of memorable performances by artists who now will, through the marvels of modern high technology, gain a measure of justified immortality.

Here is the cream. I swear, if I have some time, I will do real justice to the influence of one Victoria Spivey. For now though feast upon her youthful version of her composition “Telephoning The Blues”. Today the phrasing would probably require “Text-messaging The Blues” but anyway you put it old Victoria’s got them, and got them bad. The name Tommy Johnson should be more widely known today than it is. Blues performer and archivist Rory Block had covered a few of his songs many years ago but he deserves ‘re-discovery’, especially on this alcohol-related topical number “Canned Heat Blues”. This is the real stuff from the edges of society down in the hobo jungles. It is a tough dollar there, and that ain't no lie.

I only need to mention Blind Willie McTell here slightly as he is one of the few old voices that has not been forgotten, especially on the much covered, and deservedly so, “Statesboro Blues”. I have recently gotten back into that hybrid blues/folk sound produced by jug band music in reviews of Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur and Geoff Muldaur from the 1960’s Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. Well, where do you think they got some of their material from? Natch, the Memphis Jug Band here doing the old classic “Stealin’, Stealin'” (ya, I love that phrase “stealin' back to my used-to-be” too) and “Cocaine Blues” (when it was legal, of course).

Anything done by Texas bluesman Furry Lewis is good (think of those “Cassie Jones”’, parts one and two, masterpieces of the slide guitar). Here is a whimsical one, “Judge Harsh Blues”. Same goes for Sippy Wallace, a blues singer who I have reviewed individually in this space, with her youthful rendition of “I’m A Mighty Tight Woman”. For comparison purposes her version done later when she was ‘discovered’ in the 1960’s is better. By the way, as an interesting example of how the old time country blues and the folk revival of the early 1960’s linked up, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band members mentioned above and Sippy shared many a stage together in those days. Nice, right? Texan Jimmy Rodgers demonstrates his incredible yodel work on “Blue Yodel #9” although I will argue, a little, about his inclusion here. He belongs in the pantheon of some genre but I do not think that it is the blues. Finally, a tip of the hat to the title tune “The First Time I Met The Blues” by Little Brother Montgomery. I rest my case.

Lyrics to Canned Heat Blues :

Crying, canned heat, canned heat, mama, crying, sure, Lord, killing me.
Crying, canned heat, mama, sure, Lord killing me.
Takes alcorub to take these canned heat blues.

Crying, mama, mama, mama, you know, canned heat killing me.
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat is killing me.
Canned heat don't kill me, crying, babe, i'll never die.

I woke up, this morning, crying, canned heat 'ourn my bed.
Run here, somebody, take these canned heat blues.
Run here, somebody, and take these canned heat blues.

[ Canned Heat Blues Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

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