CD Review
By Zack James
Long before Seth Garth
became back in the day, the 1960s day, the music critic for the now long gone
The Eye published in those day out of Oakland California he had been bitten by
the blues bug. Of course in the 1960s one to be a successful and relevant music
critic one had to concentrate on the emerging and then fading folk music minute
(of which the blues was seen as a sub-set of the genre especially the country
blues wings) and then post-British invasion and the rise of the
counter-cultural movement what was called “acid” rock. So Seth’s blues bug,
except for an occasional sneak-in was cut short by the needs of his career.
Even then though Seth would keep up with the various trends coming out of
places like Chicago and Detroit and of the artists who had formed his first
interests.
Strangely Seth had come to
his love of the blues almost by accident. Back in the 1950s he had been like
many teenagers totally devoted to his transistor radio to shutout the
distractions of parents and siblings around the house. In those days though he
was drawn to the fresh air of rock and roll, guys like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Chuck Berry. One Sunday night though almost like a ghost message from the
radio airwaves the station he usually listened to WMEX was drowned by a more
powerful station from Chicago, WABC. The show Be-Bop Benny’s Blues Hour (actually
two hours but that was the title of the show). The first song Hound Dog
Taylor’s The Sky Is Crying. He was hooked, hooked mainly
because in those days the blues coming out of Chicago sounded like a very
primitive version of rock, like maybe it had something to do with that beat in
his head whenever a serious rock song came on WMEX like Chuck Berry’s Sweet
Little Rock and Roller. He couldn’t always get the station on Sunday night,
something to do with those wind patterns but he was smitten.
Like a lot of things
including his later interest in folk music and acid rock Seth always wanted to
delve into the roots of whatever trend he was writing about. That was how he
found out that a lot of the songs that he heard on the Be-Bop Benny show were
the genesis of rock. Also that rock had eclipsed the blues as the be-bop new
thing leaving many of the most popular blues artists, overwhelming black
artists, behind to pick up the scraps of the musical audience (only to be
“discovered” later by some of the more thoughtful rock stars like the Stones
just as the old time country blues artists from the South were “discovered” by
folk aficionado in their turn).
Seth also dug into the
technical aspects of the industry, who was producing the music. Those where the
days when there were many small, small by today’s mega-standards, essentially
mom and pop record companies producing blues material. In Chicago, with the
huge migration of blacks from the South during the previous two generations
there were a myriad of labels. But two stuck out, two were the ones who grabs
the very best artists around Maxwell Street and made them stars, from the many
one hit wonders to classic stars like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B.
King. Of course most people have heard of those artists who worked out of the
Chess Record label. But the other big label, the one under review, Alligator,
also produced a shew of stars. So that very first night Seth had heard the
legendary Hound Dog Taylor doing The Sky Is Crying he was
under contract with Alligator. For more artists check out this two CD
compilation of those others who also graced that label. Then you will be up to
date on the genesis of the Chicago blues explosion that changed blues from
acoustic to electric back in the
day.
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