*Once More,The Boogie Chillen” Man- The Boogie Blues Of John Lee Hooker

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of John Lee Hooker Doing "I'm Bad Like Jesse James"".

John Lee Hooker: The Definitive Collection, John Lee Hooker, Union Square Music, 2000

So given the above comments what is classic here, according to my tastes. Well, hell “Boogie Chillen” is one of those here or there songs Hooker songs I mentioned above that I liked. How about the power of “Boom Boom” and “Hard Headed Woman” and the classic Hooker lines of “She’s Long, “She’s Tall”.

*The Boogie Chillen” Man- The Boogie Blues Of John Lee Hooker

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of John Lee Hooker Doing "Boogie Chillen".

CD REVIEW

John Lee Hooker: The Real Folk Blues, Chess Records, 1987

I have poured out kudos to the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Skip James, Son House, Bukka White and an assortment of other legendary male acoustic and electric blues guitar players in this space. I have not, until now, mentioned the name of the legendary blues artist John Lee Hooker, although he belongs up there with those other above-mentioned names. Why? Well, frankly, it is a question of tastes. Other than an occasional song here or there John Lee Hooker does not “speak” to me, a term that means something to me in the blues context. Sure his guitar smokes when he is on. He always had more than enough black and white bands (Canned Heat, for one) clamoring to back him up and certainly his lyrics (with a few “politically incorrect” exceptions common to the genre) drove his message home. But we never connected at that “soul” level the way Wolf, Son House or the recently discovered (by me) Bukka White do. This happens. But I know enough about the blues to know that John Lee Hooker will “speak” to others. Legends are like that.

So given the above comments what is classic here, according to my tastes. Well, hell “Stella Mae” is one of those here or there songs Hooker songs I mentioned above that I liked. Others may like the much covered “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”. (This may be the best way to state my case- George Thorogood’s version “speaks” to me.) “Peace Lovin’ Man” and “I’m In The Mood” are exemplars of Hooker’s boogie guitar style.

*Again, The Boogie Chillen” Man- The Boogie Blues Of John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker: The Definitive Collection, John Lee Hooker, Union Square Music, 2000

So given the above comments what is classic here, according to my tastes. Well, hell “Boogie Chillen” is one of those here or there songs Hooker songs I mentioned above that I liked. How about the power of “Boom Boom” and “Hard Headed Woman” and the classic Hooker lines of “She’s Long, “She’s Tall”.


*Once More,The Boogie Chillen” Man- The Boogie Blues Of John Lee Hooker

The Very Best Of John Lee Hooker, John Lee Hooker, Rhino Records, 1995

So given the above comments what is classic here, according to my tastes. Well, hell just the lyrics alone to “I’m Bad Like Jesse James” rates as one of those here or there songs Hooker songs I mentioned above that I liked. Others may like the much covered “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”. (This may be the best way to state my case- George Thorogood’s version “speaks” to me.) “Boogie Chillen” and “I’m In The Mood” are exemplars of Hooker’s boogie guitar style.


"Boogie Chillen'" : John Lee Hooker

(John Lee Hooker)

Well my mama she didn't 'low me, just to stay out all night long, oh Lord
Well my mama didn't 'low me, just to stay out all night long
I didn't care what she didn't 'low, I would boogie-woogie anyhow

When I first came to town people, I was walkin' down Hastings Street
Everybody was talkin' about, the Henry Swing Club
I decided I drop in there that night
When I got there, I say, "Yes, people"
They was really havin' a ball!
Yes, I know
Boogie Chillen'!

One night I was layin' down,
I heard mama 'n papa talkin'
I heard papa tell mama, let that boy boogie-woogie,
It's in him, and it got to come out
And I felt so good,
Went on boogie'n just the same


"Tupelo Blues"

(John Lee Hooker)

[Spoken:]
Did you read about the flood?
It happened long time ago, in a little country town, way back in Mississippi
It rained and it rained, it rained both night and day
The people got worried, they began to cry,
"lord have mercy, where can we go now?"
There were women and there was children, screaming and crying,
"lord have mercy and a great disaster, who can we turn to now, but you?"
The great flood of Tupelo, Mississippi
It happened one evenin', one Friday evenin', a long time ago,
It rained and it started rainin'
The people of Tupelo, out on the farm gathering their harvest,
A dark cloud rolled, way back in Tupelo, Mississippi, hmm, hmm

Wasn't that a mighty time,
Wasn't that a mighty time?
Wasn't that a mighty time,
A mighty time, that evenin'?
It rained, both night and day
The poor people that had no place to go, hmm,hmm
A little town, called Tupelo, Mississippi
I never forget it and I know you won't either

"I'm In The Mood"

(John Lee Hooker / Bernard Bessman)

I'm in the mood baby, I'm in the mood for love
I'm in the mood baby, I'm in the mood for love
I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood, baby, I'm in the mood for love

I said night time is the right time, to be with the one you love
You know when night come baby, God know, you're so far away
I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood baby, I'm in the mood for love
I'm in the mood, in the mood, baby, in the mood for love

I said yes, my mama told me, to leave that girl alone
But my mama didn't know, God know, girl was puttin' down
I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood baby, in the mood for love
I'm in the mood, I'm in the mood, baby, in the mood for love

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer lyrics

One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
Hey mister bartender come here
I want another drink and I want it now

My baby she gone, she been gone two night
I ain't seen my baby since night before last
One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer

"I'm Mad Again"

(John Lee Hooker)

I had a friend one time, at least I thought I did
Taken that man in my house, give him my food,
Over my table, that I couldn't afford

He come to me, he said 'Johnny, ain't got no place to stay'
I said 'Yes man, come to my house'
I get you a place to stay, and a bed to sleep in,
That I couldn't afford

When I found out, you with my wife,
Now I'm mad, like Al Capone
Well I warned you one time,
Next time I warn you,
I'm gonna use my gun on you
'cause I'm mad with you, hahaha
I'm mad with you, like Al Capone

Look man, I told you one time before
But this time, I'm gonna teach you,
A little lesson, you won't forget
Take this man, right down by, the riverside
I might drown you,
I might shoot you,
I don't know
Gonna tie your hands, gonna tie your feet
Gag you so you can't talk to nobody
I'm mad, rrrrr, I'm mad with you
You're sinkin', I'm mad


"It Hurts Me So"

(John Lee Hooker / Bernard Besman)

That man don't love you, he told me so
He's only doin' that, baby, to break up your home

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so

That man don't love you, no he don't
He's only jivin' you little girl, lovin' the girl next door

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so Yeah!.

You know you don't love him, you know you don't
Go ahead and leave me baby, don't make me cry

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so

That man don't love you, he told me so
Only jivin' you, baby, breaking up your home

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so

So long, baby, I've got to go
Because you don't love me now, darlin', I know you don't

When things go wrong, so wrong with you,
It hurts me so, it hurts me so

"How Long Blues"

(Leroy Carr, arranged by John Lee Hooker)

Standin' at the station when the train come by
Deep down in my heart, baby, feel an achin' pain
How long, oh, baby how long?
Baby how long, baby how long,
Has that evenin' train been gone,
How long, oh, baby how long?

If I could holler like a mountain jack,
I'd go up on the mountain, call my baby back
How long, oh, baby how long?

I could see the green grass,
Growin' up on the hill
But you can't see a green-black drawin' on a,
On a dollar bill
Baby, how long?
Baby how long?

How long, baby how long,
Has that evenin' train been gone?
Baby how long, oh baby how long?
Baby how long, oh baby how long?

*In The Shadow Of The Great Blues Guitarists- Joe Louis Walker & His Bosstalkers

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Joe Louis Walker's cover of the Big Joe Turner sassy classic "Rebecca".


DVD Review

Joe Louis Walker & His Bosstalkers: In Concert, Joe Louis Walker and various sidemen, Gema Productions, 2003



I have gone through the repertoire of blues great-John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins and so on in this space over the last period. I have not included the artists under review, Joe Louis Walker & His Bosstalkers and with reason. Although Joe Louis played with all of the above named artists of the electric blues pantheon he, off of this performance, does not belong there. On the second or third level, yes. No question that he is a virtuoso guitar player-behind someone else. Nothing wrong with that, right? Here in this 1991 concert the stick outs are “I Didn’t Know”, “The Gift’ and “One Time Around”. Good solid blues but nothing to turn your head or stop what you are doing like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy or John Lee REQUIRE you to do.

***********

Blues Survivor
This is the title track from his Verve/Gitanes CD, recorded in 1992 in California. In this funky song he tells of the obstacles he had to overcome in his career; keeping the blues alive, as it were, while the blues were keeping him alive.

True blues survivor

I'm a true blues survivor, I'm proud I am
I tried a little bit of this and a little bit of that
Searching for something that would be right for me
Tryin' to find some place where I belong at
I tried a little rock, I tried a little roll
I tried a little top hit(?) and I tried a little soul
Hey hey you don't know what it's like
Fightin' the powers all of my life
I've got my own way of walkin'
My own way of talkin'
I'll do what I want and I'll do what I like
Yeah yeah

Sixteen years old, I'm fresh outa school
Tryin' to figure out what I wanna do
I couldn't find no work and I couldn't stay at home
The only thing to do was to sing the blues
I practise every day, go travellin' every night
Tryin' not to get it wrong, I'm still tryin' to get it right
Hey hey you don't know what I've done
All my life I've beren under the gun
I wanna do my own drivin'
I'm true blues survivin'
And that's what's keepin' me strong strong strong
Yeah yeah

(solo)

(I'm a true blues survivor)
I've been left in distress up sky high
(I'm a true blues survivor)
I've been busted and mistrusted, left by myself
(I'm a true blues survivor)
I've been up, I've been down, left all around
(I'm a true blues survivor)
I been busted, mistrusted, I been up, I been down,
locked in, left out, kept me hangin' around
(I'm a true blues survivor)
(I'm a true blues survivor)
(I'm a true blues survivor)




Mama Didn't Raise No Fool
This song can be found on the CD "The Gift" (Hightone Records, 1988)

Mama didn't raise no fool (D. Walker - J. L. Walker)


If I was a fool, it would sure be easy
I could fall, oh baby, for your wicked smile
Buy you a drink, whisper some lie, oh no
And we could go somewhere quiet, for a little while

But my mama she didn't raise no fool
She said, you be careful what you do
Don't let no-one take advantage of you
But my mama she didn't raise no fool
No fool

If I was a fool, I'd forget those promises I already have made
Wipe my woman from my mind, so we could play, oh baby
If I was a fool, I'd follow you home
I would hug you, kiss you and squeeze you, all night long

But no...
My mama she didn't raise no fool
She said, you be careful what you do
Don't let no-one take advantage of you
Cause my ma she didn't raise no fool


Moanin' News
From his Hightone Records CD "Cold Is The Night", a J. L. Walker composition with an intriguing, suggestive title.

There once was a man, who loved to sing the blues
He'd two pair of pants and just one pair of shoes
But when he's moan that lowdown dirty blues
People come a-runnin' from miles around
Just to hear what he was puttin' down
That is why they call him
The moanin' news
The moanin' news

Late at night, when he start to make his move
He irons his pants, and shines those pair of shoes
And then he moan that gutbucket downhome blues
People would begin to jump and shout
After they had heard what he was talkin' about
That is why they call him
The moanin' blues
The moanin' blues

He starts to moan
He said "A-hoo... A-hoo..."
He start to moan
He said "A-hoo... A-hoo..."
People come a-runnin' from far away
Just to hear what the man had to say
That is why they call him
The moanin' blues
The moanin' blues

Later on, when he finally found success
He come back home, and tried to get some rest
And he could moan, that funky urban blues
Now that you're in, you turn on your TV
You never guessed who you might see
The man they used to call
The moanin' blues
The moanin' blues
The moanin' blues
The moanin' blues


Shade Tree Mechanic
This song was written by Henry Oden, Joe Louis' long-time bass player. It's on the CD "The Gift".

I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
Cause I'm your shade tree mechanic
And heaven knows that I'm the one

I can oil and lube you
And not lose a single drop, no no
I can cool you down
When you start to runnin' hot
I'm your shade tree mechanic
I never leave my shady spot

I can check your battery baby
With my special pressure gage
My work is guaranteed
Guaranteed for thirty days
I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
Cause I'm your shade tree mechanic
And heaven knows I'm the one

(guitar solo)

I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
Cause I'm your shade tree mechanic
And heaven knows I'm the one

You say your drive shaft may misfire
Your piston rod is running flat
Don't you worry about a thing
I got the tools for that
I want you to put me under your shade tree
Please get me out of the sun
My work is guaranteed
I've got just what you need
You can call me day or night
I'll always treat u right
I am the one

Ten More Shows To Play
Another blues about being a blues singer, from the CD "Cold Is The Night" (Hightone Records, 1986)

Ten More Shows To Play (D. Walker - L. Fulson)

Tonight I'm in Houston, then Dallas and L.A.
My woman need me with her but I got ten more shows to play
How long 'fore she'll ask me to choose
Between her lovin' and these ever lovin' blues

I've hit the road before, she never once complained
This time she was cryin' when I got on the plane
I'm hopin' and I'm prayin' she can wait and be true
And not be discouraged without the things we used to do
How long 'fore she'll ask me to choose
Between her lovin' and these ever lovin' blues
All right...

I'm sittin' here in misery, you know I'm on the spot
That woman and this guitar is all I've really got
How long 'fore she'll ask me to choose
Between her lovin' and these ever lovin' blues

Tonight I'm in Houston, then Dallas and L.A.
My woman need me with her but I got ten more shows to play

*The Godfather Of The Chicago Blues- Willie Dixon Lights Up The Room

Click On Title To Link To Willie Dixon Webpage.

CD REVIEW

I Am The Blues, Willie Dixon, Sony Music Entertainment, 1993

Muddy Waters. Check. Howlin' Wolf. Check. Koko Taylor. Check. Etta James. Check. And on and on. What do they all have in common? Well, they have all covered the music created by the subject of this review, Willie Dixon. Now Mr. Dixon does not spring to mind when one is discussing the classic blues artists that I have filled this space with over the past year or so. In some senses that is right. But there is always the question, and it is posed most sharply here, about the roots of any musical genre, how it was put together and who did that leg work. Now we are in Mr. Dixon's territory. In reviewing a series of DVDs on the "American Folk Blues Concerts" that were performed in Europe in the early 1960's I mentioned his name in passing. I have also mentioned his name as the writer in connection with Howlin' Wolf's classic rendition of "The Little Red Rooster" (later covered by The Rolling Stones) that was my first conscious exposure to electric blues. Here, old Willie is front and center.

Okay, so lets' sum up. Willie wrote great songs, he played a mean bass, and he produced for Chicago's Chess Records some of the most memorable blues recordings of all times. And never got his full recognition or full compensation for that fact. However the treatment of musical artists, and especially blues artists is a subject for another time. Yet, there is no denying his claim as the 'godfather of the blues'. But how does he stand up as a performer in his own right? Well, frankly so-so. On this CD he has a very good back up house band but his vocals fail to carry the effect of his great songs that others have been able to cover so memorably. This is one of those cases where the cover artist is better than the song writer. Still it is nice to see his interpretation of the songs that have been hits for so many others. "Back Door Man", "Spoonful", I'm Your Hoochie Goochie Man" and the above-mentioned "The Little Red Rooster". I can hear Muddy and Wolf now. Ya, but Willie, stand tall; you ARE 'the godfather of the electric blues'. Kudos.


"The Red Rooster" by Willie Dixon

I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way

Oh the dogs begin to bark, and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind people, cause little red rooster is on the prowl

If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
There ain't no peace in the barnyard, since the little red rooster been gone

Wang Dang Doodle
Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor

Tell Automatic Slim , tell Razor Totin' Jim
Tell Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, tell Fast Talking Fanny
A we gonna pitch a ball, a down to that union hall
We gonna romp and tromp till midnight
We gonna fuss and fight till daylight
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long

Tell Kudu-Crawlin' Red, tell Abyssinian Ned
Tell ol' Pistol Pete, everybody gonna meet
Tonight we need no rest, we really gonna throw a mess
We gonna to break out all of the windows,
we gonna kick down all the doors
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long

Tell Fats and Washboard Sam, that everybody gonna to jam
Tell Shaky and Boxcar Joe, we got sawdust on the floor
Tell Peg and Caroline Dye, we gonna have a time
When the fish scent fill the air, there'll be snuff juice everywhere
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long etc.

by Willie Dixon


SPOONFUL

Could fill spoons full of diamonds,
Could fill spoons full of gold.
Just a little spoon of your precious love
Will satisfy my soul.

Men lies about it.
Some of them cries about it.
Some of them dies about it.
Everything's a-fightin' about the spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.

Could fill spoons full of coffee,
Could fill spoons full of tea.
Just a little spoon of your precious love;
Is that enough for me?

Chorus

Could fill spoons full of water,
Save them from the desert sands.
But a little spoon of your forty-five
Saved you from another man.

by Willie Dixon

*A Blues Piano Treat- The Blues Of Mr. Memphis Slim

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Memphis Slim Doing "Beer Drinking Woman".

DVD REVIEW

Memphis Slim: Live At Ronnie Scott’s, Memphis Slim, 1986

If you listen to enough blues. If you watch enough films about the blues. If you read enough blues liner notes you not only will become “educated” about this genre but will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words who’s paid the dues to the blues, and who hasn’t. I have spilled plenty of ink in this space discussing the various personalities, who formed that great post-World War II electric blues explosion centered on Chicago and its environs. I have extolled Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Magic Slim, John Lee Hooker and the like. And rightly so. However, every once in a while one needs to freshen up the list as one reviews more material. That was the case with my recent “discovery” of the legendary country blues master, Bukka White. I now add Memphis Slim to the electric blues side.

It is not as if I did not know the name Memphis Slim. And heard his work in various blues compilations, especially from his Chess Record days and on the American Folk Blues series from the 1960's. As noted above once you are immersed in the blues genre and begin to find out who the blues greats acknowledge as their own these things get sorted out quickly. I kept hearing the name Memphis Slim uttered from their lips, as companion and influence. Strangely, after the golden age of the barrel house piano player in the 1920’s and 1930’s there was something of a hiatus in the blues piano as the electric guitar began to dominate. Memphis Slim carries that blues piano tradition forward to the “new age”.

Frankly, every once in awhile a blues piano is the kind of thing that you need to while away your own blues. It provides a more evocative, cleaner sound that the hyper-energetic electric guitar of late Saturday nights. As Memphis Slim himself mentions in between songs in the film, when discussing what he believes the blues are all about, the blues are about hunger, sorrow, longing for love, lost loves and the like. But they are also about happier events as well. Both lyric renditions and piano styles are on display here as Memphis goes through his paces to an appreciative British audience (Ronnie Scott’s is, or was, a famous night spot in London) in 1986. So if you want to watch a master at the blues piano and no mean blues vocal stylist this is your address.

"Rack 'em Back Jack"

You know I'm gonna pray
Lord, never let me love, again
I'm gonna pray
Lord, never let me love, again
They tell me love is a gamble
But I've never been able to win

Blue an' disgusted
That's the way I feel
Feel like a broken spoke
In some farmer's wagon wheel
My baby walked out on me
You know she gave me a raw, raw deal
(piano &

I come home ev'ry night
My baby goes out about ten
Come home ev'ry night
My baby goes out about ten
An' when I go to work ev'ry mornin'
My baby, she's just comin' in

That's why I'm blue an' disgusted
An' that's the way I feel
So blue an' disgusted
People, that's the way I feel
Feel like a broken spoke
In some farmer's wagon wheel

"Beer Drinking Woman"

(piano 'Dragnet' intro)

Spoken:

The story's true ladies and gentlemen.
All the names have been changed to
protect the innocent.
The year 19 hundred and forty.
The city, Chicago. The place, Rubin's Tavern
The story goes something like this:

I walked into a beer tavern
To give a girl a nice time
I had forty-five dollars when I enter
When I left I had one dime

Wasn't she a beer drinkin' woman?
Don't ya know, man don't ya know?
She was a beer-drinkin' woman
And I don't want to see her no more

Now, when I spend down to my last dime
She said, 'Darlin' I know you're not through'
I said, 'Yes, baby doll
And the trophy belongs to you'

Wasn't she a beer drinkin' woman?
Don't you know, man don't you know?
She was a beer-drinkin' woman
And I don't wanna see her no more

Now she'd often say, 'Excuse me a minute
I've got to step around here'
And ev'ry time she came back
She had room for another quart of beer

Wasn't that a beer drinkin' woman?
Don't ya know, man, don't ya know?
She was a beer drinkin' woman
And I don't want to see her no mo'.

"I.c. Blues"

(harmonica & piano)

Gonna catch that Illinois Central
Gonna ride around the bend
I'm gonna catch that Illinois Central
I'm gonna ride around the bend
Well, and the Lord only know
Just when I'll be back again
I'm goin' back home
Where I know I have a friend
Well, I'm goin' back home
Where I know I have a friend
They'll be so glad to see me
They won't even ask me where I've been

Conductor, raise your hand
So the engineer can ring the bell
Conductor, raise your hand
So the engineer can ring the bell
When those wheels start turnin' over
I wanna be at the north, farewell

(harmonica & piano)

This time, tomorrow
There's no tellin' where I'll be
This time, tomorrow
There's no tellin' where I'll be, Lord
But you can bet your bottom dollar
I'll be somewhere down on the I. C.


"Baby Doll"

What's wrong, baby doll?
We can't get along
What's wrong, baby doll?
We can't get along
We'll have fun together
Now baby, tell me what's wrong
Have your mind made up
Before you walk out that door
Have your mind made up
Before you walk out that door
Because one woman, one chance
You don't get back no mo'

(guitar & instrumental)

I've been good to you
As I intend to be
I've been good to you
As I intend to be
Now, it seem like, baby doll
You tryin' to run out on me.

"Blue And Disgusted"

You know I'm gonna pray
Lord, never let me love, again
I'm gonna pray
Lord, never let me love, again
They tell me love is a gamble
But I've never been able to win

Blue an' disgusted
That's the way I feel
Feel like a broken spoke
In some farmer's wagon wheel
My baby walked out on me
You know she gave me a raw, raw deal
(piano &

I come home ev'ry night
My baby goes out about ten
Come home ev'ry night
My baby goes out about ten
An' when I go to work ev'ry mornin'
My baby, she's just comin' in

That's why I'm blue an' disgusted
An' that's the way I feel
So blue an' disgusted
People, that's the way I feel
Feel like a broken spoke
In some farmer's wagon wheel.


"When Your Dough Roller Is Gone"

Did you ever wake up an' find
Your dough roller, gone?
Did you ever wake up an' find
Your dough roller, gone?
Well, an' you hang your head
You cry all night long

I've got the blues so bad
It hurt my feet to walk
I've got the blues so bad
It hurt my feet to walk
People, I've got the blues so bad
It hurt my tongue to talk
(piano)

Lord, I told my dough roller
Before I left that town
Well, I told my dough roller
Before I left that town
'Baby, don't let nobody
Tear my playhouse down.

*In The Prime Of The Chicago Blues Explosion- The Film "Cadillac Records"

Click On Title To Link To Chess Records site.

DVD Review

Cadillac Records, starring Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Beyonce Knowles as Etta James, Sony Music Film, 2008

It seems almost anti-climatic to be reviewing this particular film, Cadillac Records, about the rise of Chess Records and its driving force, owner Leonard Chess, in the maelstrom of the Chicago blues explosion of the 1940's and 1950's. Why? Over the past year or so, along with the usual left wing political books by the likes of Leon Trotsky and James P. Cannon that are the core items that I review in this space, I have been fervently doing a personal search for, and reflection on, the roots of American music. And nothing is more central to an exploration of the American songbook than the various expressions of the blues from its roots in the black quarters of plantation society down South, through to the immense process of black urbanization in the mid-20th century and with it the electrification of the blues and further on the use of that genre to form the basis for Rock `n' Roll that was central to much of the musical history of the last half of that century.

Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Howin'Wolf, Chuck Berry and the divine Ms. Etta James are all names that should be familiar to knowledgeable blues fan and whose fame and fortune, rises and falls form the core of this film. They are also names prominent among those that have been reviewed in this space so this is a real treat. The Chess Record saga is narrated by the actor who plays the producer, "talent hunter", songwriter and musician Willie Dixon, a huge force in the expansion of Chess Records and Chicago blues in general. And this is as it should be. Willie Dixon wrote for both Muddy Waters (the classic "Hoochie Coochie Man", among others) and Howlin' Wolf (the most famous being "The Red Rooster", a song later covered by The Rolling Stones, enthusiastic blues aficionados, and one of my first exposures to the raw electric blues sound. Thanks, Willie). He was also at Chess when the music shifted away from the Chicago blues to the `jump' of rock `n' roll driven by the likes of Chuck Berry who could "crossover" to all those white teenagers like me trying to break out of the music of our parents' generation. He was also there when Ms. Etta James came on the scene with her R&B style that also was an attempt to do that same crossover with a black woman singer.

According to the notes to this film it is based on a true story, that of Leonard Chess and the blues stars mentioned above. How much truth there actually is included in the script is beyond the scope of this review. I would note that one of the segments of Martin Scorsese's PBS multi-part Blues homage in 2003 dealt with the role of Chess Records as part of the total blues picture and featured Leonard Chess's son, Marshall, a record producer in his own right. Some of his comments do not exactly jibe with the presentation of the facts in this film. That is a subject for further research and discovery.

Some important themes, nevertheless, are explored in the film, even if obliquely. The relationship between a young hustling Jew (and his brother, not noted in the film) from Poland trying to make a buck in America and young blacks trying to get out from under the rural "Jim Crow" South in mid-20th century America. The question of interracial sex, both male and female when that was very, very taboo. Martial infidelity, a constant problem in the music industry (and elsewhere). Exploitation of blacks, both financially and musically, by the white-dominated music power structure, including Leonard Chess. The touchy question of black identity and self-respect, addressed very nicely in the tensions between Muddy, as a representative "Uncle Tom", and Howlin' Wolf (or Chuck Berry), as the "New Black Man", coming out of new black consciousness of the civil rights struggle blazing away during that period. Addressing those issues should keep us busy for a while.

Let's finish up with a few kudos, though. A musical tribute to a record company and a famous record producer could have been a piece of fluff. While, as noted above, the film raised a number of questions about what really went on back then the heart of the movie is driven by the blues and the need to express oneself in that genre, whether as a job or a way of life. The performers carried the day. The camaraderie and falling out between Muddy and Little Walter is worked nicely. The struggle's of Etta James (Beyonce is rather fetching here, by the way, as Etta) to break through as an artist works. And so on.

The Cadillac automobile formed a symbol for Americans, black and white, back in these days. The artists presented here deserved their Cadillacs. More enduring though, as noted at the end of the film, all the main players here have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. I challenge anyone to argue against those inclusions. Watch this film and then get on the Internet and download the music. Yes, that's the ticket.


"The Red Rooster" by Willie Dixon

I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way

Oh the dogs begin to bark, and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind people, cause little red rooster is on the prowl

If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
There ain't no peace in the barnyard, since the little red rooster been gone

Wang Dang Doodle
Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor

Tell Automatic Slim , tell Razor Totin' Jim
Tell Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, tell Fast Talking Fanny
A we gonna pitch a ball, a down to that union hall
We gonna romp and tromp till midnight
We gonna fuss and fight till daylight
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long

Tell Kudu-Crawlin' Red, tell Abyssinian Ned
Tell ol' Pistol Pete, everybody gonna meet
Tonight we need no rest, we really gonna throw a mess
We gonna to break out all of the windows,
we gonna kick down all the doors
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long

Tell Fats and Washboard Sam, that everybody gonna to jam
Tell Shaky and Boxcar Joe, we got sawdust on the floor
Tell Peg and Caroline Dye, we gonna have a time
When the fish scent fill the air, there'll be snuff juice everywhere
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long etc.

by Willie Dixon


SPOONFUL

Could fill spoons full of diamonds,
Could fill spoons full of gold.
Just a little spoon of your precious love
Will satisfy my soul.

Men lies about it.
Some of them cries about it.
Some of them dies about it.
Everything's a-fightin' about the spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.

Could fill spoons full of coffee,
Could fill spoons full of tea.
Just a little spoon of your precious love;
Is that enough for me?

Chorus

Could fill spoons full of water,
Save them from the desert sands.
But a little spoon of your forty-five
Saved you from another man.

by Willie Dixon

Out In The Delta Night-With Legendary Bluesman Muddy Waters In Mind

Out In The Delta Night-With Legendary Bluesman Muddy Waters In Mind

By Lester Lannon

Bart Webber was a late-comer to the world of the blues, you know, the music that came via Mother Africa beat from down in the Delta, out in the Piedmont and along the Alabama crescent. He had missed capturing that sound deep in his head although he probably had heard some riffs accidently or sub-consciously in some way until the early 1970s having previously been deeply emerged in the rock and roll of his youth down in Riverdale south of Boston and later by the “acid” rock of his young adulthood. Guys like Johnny Winters and John Mayall, gals like Bonnie Raitt, Janis Joplin probably entered his universe without being tagged as from down in Delta, Piedmont, Crescent land. His tutor in all things blues (and of folk of which it could be have been argued, and has been blues, is a integral  part of) Sam Lowell introduced him to the genre one night in Cambridge at Jack’s, the then famous blues room, after they had not seen each other for a while. And that would be a main subject of conversation thereafter when the met at any gin mill.

That “not having seen each other for a while” being the direct result of Bart’s coming back from the West Coast about a year earlier to open up a small printing shop in Riverdale in the old Lawrence Lowell Building just off downtown and Sam’s, also back from the Coast about the same time, beginning his second year of law school in Boston at Suffolk Law School. As old-time high school friends they had drifted out to California, draft exempt respectively for an exemption as sole support of his family after his father passed away and as physically unfit for military, along with a couple of other guys from Riverdale, Jack Callahan and Frankie Riley, and about a million young people from everywhere trying to find some meaning to their lives, at least that was the quest, that is what Bart and Sam thought they were doing. Once Sam was safely through L1 he called Bart up and they had begun once again their youthful searches for the meaning of everything musical.  

For those not familiar with Cambridge, those not familiar with Harvard Square in the folk pantheon, and those not familiar with the early link-up between traditional folk music from the mountains like East Virginia and Tom Doulas and such classic blues tunes as Mississippi Fred McDowell’s Got To Move and 61 Highway and Bukka White’s Panama Limited Jack’s was the place more so than the Club Blue and Café Nana further up the street where hot blues was played. The place too where you could heard a young Bonnie Raitt now that we are name-dropping working out the kinks in her material, working out her thirst, and working out her entrée into the blues world in those days in the 1960s when Sam, before he headed out west with an important segment of his generation, immersed himself in the genre. He would mention some stuff to Bart, as always, whenever he thought he could get the musical upper-hand on Bart. Bart had been way ahead of him on the classic rock, you know, Elvis, Carl, Buddy, Chuck and Jerry Lee but Sam had chipped away at that lead with the advent of the Stones and was eons ahead once the folk and blues milieus came into some fashion among the hipsters of Cambridge and the diaspora.

That night we are talking about, the night of the meeting at Jack’s, with both men safely drinking their whiskies and scotches in lieu of the less public hash pipe, ganga gong, or dixie cup. (You figure out that usage if you are too forgetful, or too young just Google Tom Wolfe and you will link straight to the reference.) Sam started a conversation by telling Bart that he remembered back in the day when he had heard Howlin’ Wolf, the mad monk Chicago bluesman, who had practically eaten his harmonica on a song called How Many More Years (are you going to dog me around-a very good question that any righteous man is entitled to ask his, ah, temperamental lady when she is giving nothing, nothing but heartache and the runaround) get down and dirty on a Willie Dixon song, Little Red Rooster, long after he had heard the Stones do their cover of the song which many radio stations around Riverdale refused to play on the air for its allegedly suggestive sexual references having nothing to do with roosters or barnyards. He had been “blown away” by the Wolf’s version. What he had to tell Bart that night was that he had just heard a record where a couple of the Stones, probably Keith Richards and Ronnie Woods, sitting at the feet of the Wolf learning how to play, really play that song rather than their white bread, white boy version. Hot stuff.                  

That gave Bart just the opportunity he was looking for to bring up his “difference” with Sam about who was the “max daddy” bluesman, the electric Chicago blues version not that of the down country  guys like Son House and Skip James. And that difference turned on his much greater preference for the more sultry blues beat of Mister Muddy Waters who never almost “ate” his own harmonica since he had hired help like James Cotton and Junior Wells to handle that chore. Naturally Bart always pointed to Muddy’s Hoochie Goochie Man as far superior to the gruntings of the Wolf, who in Bart’s mind had never really got the mud of the Delta off his boots.

Of course Sam, once cornered by Bart, once he knew Bart was on the war-path about the blues and who was who, aided no little by those bar whiskies and scotches, had to come back on him with that story about how the Stones when they were on one of the their early United States tours had made the pilgrimage to Chicago, to Chess Records, in those days the Mecca for Chicago blues (and incidentally a record company owned by Marshal Press’ father and uncle who just happened to be the Stones’ road manager at that point) and Muddy Waters having seen the boys come in for a look volunteered to bring their luggage in. Wolf would have left the damn luggage float up Division Street before he would bend to such indignities.            

Bart, not to be outdone in the urban legend department (urban legend about Muddy toting anybody’s luggage much less the Stones who at that point he would probably not even known about, much less that they were crazy for his music) came back on Sam hard with the facts and figures about how many “lady friends” Muddy had hanging around for his pleasure, including a few times, one at one table and another a few tables away. Of course there were rumors around that Wolf refused any advances by the enraptured females, black and white, in his audiences leading to the charges that he was “light on his feet.”  (Another urban legend since Mrs. Burnet, Wolf’s real last name stayed at home taking care of business in the knowledge that her Chester was working and not working out if you get the drift.)       

A few more whiskies and scotches would surely have Sam and Bart at each other’s throats talking heatedly about whether Hubert Sumelin added more to Wolf’s entourage than Junior Wells’ to Muddy’s. It would be a knock-down, drag-out fight from there. Sam must have wondered on such nights about the monster he had brought forth unto the world. Amen, brother, amen.  

In Honor Of Newport 1965-Muddy Waters Get Righteous At Newport 1960-Parental Guidance Suggested

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Muddy Waters at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960. With Jimmy Rushing and Otis Spann, among others. Read some of the comments for more information. A seminal blues moment for the old staid Newport crowd (Remember the practical civil war in the 1950s when Duke Ellington went all out in his return to the limelight there). I heard about the performance on the Boston jazz/blue-oriented radio at the time but I was then too young to go. I wish to high heaven I had been there.Wow!

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Folk Blues Revival Night- The 1963 American Folk Blues Festival- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of folk blues legend Lonnie Johnson performing It’s Too Late To Cry

CD Review

American Folk Blues Festival, various artists, Optimism Records, 1981

Let’s go by the numbers, the musical year numbers for my generation, the generation of ’68. We all came of musical age, more or less with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee in the mid-1950s when the music was hot, we were naïve (or worst), and just let it go from there. After a musical counter-revolution in the late 1950s where we put up with some awful Bobby Vee/Fabian/Johnny Somebody stuff we stepped right into the hard rock and roll of the Rolling Stones and later groups that based their early work on the blues, the American etched blues. Go figure.

Yes, go figure. Go figure that much of early rock and roll was derived from the blues, city blues mainly, Chicago mainly, but those self-same city blues were derived from you guessed it, the old country blues from down in the Delta, the North Carolina Piedmont and the hills and hollows of Appalachia where all the hip Chicago cats (Muddy, Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Well, etc.,) came from. All of this is just around about way to pay tribute to the roots of our generational genre.

But more than that it was a question of revivals, here the American Folk Blues Festival of 1963, which was indirectly brought about by our generation of ’68’s search for roots to explain our angst and alienation, including the search for authentic roots music. See once rock and roll hit our brains like a, well like an atomic bomb we lose sight of where the music came from. More importantly what happened to those who created the music that once was the staple of hip music. Yes, the boys (mainly) were still around in places like Maxwell Street in Chicago or down picking cotton in the Delta or holed up in some skid row hotel just waiting to be “discovered”.

That may not be the exact genesis of the folk blues revival when that movement hit high stride in the Newport folk festivals of the early 1960s reintroducing a young audience to the likes of Sleepy John Estes, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James and Son House but it will do here. And of course the artists on this CD-the likes of Muddy Waters, Lonnie Johnson, Victoria Spivey (a personal favorite on this CD) and legendary producer and writer Willie Dixon. This is history, maybe not world-shaking history but a very important slice of the people’s history. Listen up.

The Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Good Woman On Your Mind- “The Best Of The Chicago Blues”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Muddy Water's performing his classic Chicago blues tune, Mannish Child.
CD Review

The Best Of The Chicago Blues, various artists, Vanguard Records, 1987

Johnny Prescott daydreamed his way through the music that he was listening to just then on the little transistor that Ma Prescott, Martha to adults, had given him for Christmas after he has taken a fit when she quite reasonable suggested that a new set of ties to go with his white long-sleeved shirts might be a better gift, a better Christmas gift and more practical too, for a sixteen year old boy. No, he screamed he wanted a radio, a transistor radio, batteries included, of his own so that he could listen to whatever he liked up in his room, or wherever he was, and didn’t have, understand, didn’t have to listen to some Vaughn Monroe or Harry James 1940s war drum thing on the huge immobile radio downstairs in the Prescott living room. Strictly squaresville, cubed.

But as he listened to this the Shangra-la by The Four Coins that just finished up a few seconds ago and as this Banana Boat song by The Tarriers was starting its dreary trip he was not sure that those ties wouldn’t have been a better deal, and more practical too. Ya, this so-called rock station, WAPX, had sold out to, well, sold out to somebody, because except for late at night, midnight late at night, one could not hear the likes of Jerry Lee, Carl, Little Richard, Fats, and the new, now that Elvis was gone, killer rocker, Chuck Berry who proclaimed loud and clear that Mr. Beethoven had better move alone, and said Mr. Beethoven best tell one and all of his confederates, including Mr. Tchaikovsky that rock ‘n’ roll was the new sheriff in town. As he turned the volume down a little lower (that tells the tale right there, friends) as Rainbow (where the hell do they get these creepy songs from) by Russ Hamilton he was ready to throw in the towel though .

Desperate he fingered the dial looking for some other station when he heard this crazy piano riff starting to breeze through the night air, the heated night air, and all of a sudden Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 blasted the airwaves. But funny it didn’t sound like the whinny Ike’s voice so he listened for a little longer, and as he later found out from the DJ it was actually a James Cotton Blues Band cover. After that performance was finished fish-tailing right after that one was a huge harmonica intro and what could only be mad-hatter Junior Wells doing When My Baby Left Me splashed through. No need to turn the dial further now because what Johnny Prescott had found in the crazy night air, radio beams bouncing every which way, was direct from Chicago, and maybe right off those hard-hearted Maxwell streets was Be-Bop Benny’s Chicago Blues Radio Hour. Be-Bop Benny who started Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino on their careers, or helped.

Now Johnny, like every young high-schooler, every "with it" high schooler in the USA, had heard of this show, because even though everybody was crazy for rock and roll, just now the airwaves sounded like, well, sounded like music your parents would dance to, no, sit to at a dance, some kids still craved high rock. So this show was known mainly through the teenage grapevine but Johnny had never heard it because, no way, no way in hell was his punk little Radio Shack transistor radio with two dinky batteries going to have even strength to pick Be-Bop Benny’s live show out in Chicago. So Johnny, and maybe rightly so, took this turn of events for a sign. And so when he heard that distinctive tinkle of the Otis Spann piano warming up to Spann’s Stomp and up with his Someday added in he was hooked. And you know he started to see what Billie, Billie Bradley from over in Adamsville, meant when at a school dance where he had been performing with his band, Billie and the Jets, he mentioned that if you want to get rock and roll back you had better listen to blues, and if you want to listen to blues, blues that rock then you had very definitely had better get in touch with the Chicago blues as they came north from Mississippi and places like that.

And Johnny thought, Johnny who have never been too much south of Gloversville, or west of Albany, and didn’t know too many people who had, couldn’t understand why that beat, that da,da, da, Chicago beat sounded like something out of the womb in his head. But when he heard Big Walter Horton wailing on that harmonica on Rockin’ My Boogie he knew it had to be in his genes.

*For Those In Search Of A Blues Primer- The Best Of The Mississippi Blues- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Muddy Waters performing I've Got My Mojo Working.

CD Review

The Best Of Mississippi Blues, various artists, Fuel, 2000
Okay, blues aficionados that you are you have heard it all, right? From the old Delta country blues artists who first gave form to the genre, the likes of Charly Patton, Son House, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, through to the heyday of the women touch blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ida Mack, through to the transformative figure like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters who turned the blues from acoustic (of necessity for lack of electricity) Saturday night juke joint stuff to the electric jiving and arriving hot Midwest urban Saturday night stuff.

And then after you had the basics down you went to the second tier; those who make the blues more sophisticated like Billie Holiday, and other later interpreters, some black, some white, some rock-influenced, some by jazz, and other by various revivalist trends. And in order to get you “doctorate” in blues-ology you delved into the back streets, the singers for nickels and dimes; the chittlin’ circuit where many performers got their start (and too many their finish) with their endless bowling alley, small bar, small restaurant clienteles; the world music blues scene of Tex-Mex, Cajun, and Western swing stuff. And then for post-doctoral work, a look at those who currently keep that now slender tradition alive out on those mean streets and small clubs.

Okay, Mister or Ms. Aficionado, you have some “cred” but how about those of us who are clueless, or just searching for the sound that keeps beating in the back of our heads. Give us a primer. Well, this is a roundabout way of telling you that this little CD under review will give you a sampler of some of the trends that I have mentioned above, especially of the first generation country and electric urban blues milieu. There are others out there but you are on your own to dig the stuff out so that you too can be a “doctor”.

Stick outs here include: Mississippi John Hurt on Casey Jones; Tommy Johnson on Canned Heat Blues; the legendary rocker, Ike Turner on Matchbox, and the also legendary Muddy Waters on I’ve Got My Mojo Working. But, really this whole compilation, as befits an all-star lineup, could have been included.

*On Getting “Hip” To The Blues, The Delta Blues - A CD Primer

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Delta blues great, Bukka White, performing Aberdeen Mississippi Blues

CD Review

The Rough Guide To Delta Blues, various artists, World Music Network, 2002

Okay so the blues have got your attention. Maybe you heard it as background music while traveling and can’t get that sound out of your head, or heard someone strumming in some urban square trying to scratch a few pennies out of those little chords on a guitar. Whatever. You are hooked, or at least intrigued. So you need a little primer of the guys (mainly, guys, but not exclusively so) who taught the guys who taught the guys who you heard on that street corner or in some current concert hall. That is where this nice little CD comes in. In one place and at one sitting you will most of the key guitarists who created the beat and the singers who put words to the mournful sounds about hard women, hard work, hard living and hard liquor. Names like Tommy Johnson, Skip James, Son House, of course, Muddy Waters, Charley Patton and so on.

But wait a minute this is only the beginning of the journey. From there you will need, desperately need, to hear the material John and Alan Lomax recorded back in the days down in the South when these guys were still alive. And, of course, check out Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Oh, ya, don’t forget the women blues singers who got more renown when they were alive and filling the gin mils and concert halls. And the blues as it moved north to places like Chicago and Detroit. And then people like the Stones, Rory Block, and others who cover the old classics. And don’t forget the Cajun influences, And Tex-Mex, and…. Hell by the time you get done you will be an old codger or codgerette. But here is where you start.

I would direct your attention to several outstanding efforts here, first and foremost a great version of Sitting On Top Of The World by the under-appreciated Mississippi Sheiks; Tommy Johnson on Cool Drink of Water Blues; the incredible Bukka White and his flailing National Steel guitar on Aberdeen Mississippi Blues;, and, Louise Johnson’s On The Wall.

*Walking With The King- The Blues Of B.B. King With Eric Clapton

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of B.B. King and Eric Clapton performing "Riding With The King".

CD Review

Riding With The King, B.B. King and Eric Clapton, Reprise Records, 2000

Over the past couple of years I have spent a fair amount of time reviewing various blues artists who “spoke” to me when I first got interested in the folksy county blues of the likes of Son House and Skip James back in the folk revival days of the early 1960s. And then the steamy city blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Now those last named two came out of the country, the Mississippi Delta cotton country, but when they went north to Chicago and got some electricity they transformed themselves and the genre. No question.

The blues, especially the country blues, got a great impetus from the folk revival of the early 1960s, as the country blues of Son and Skip along with Mississippi John Hurt got more play from young, mainly Northern urban folkies who “discovered” them. The real impetus behind the “discovery” of the likes of Muddy and Wolf, as well as one of the two artists under review here, B.B. King, was the “British invasion”. While we teenagers on this side of the Atlantic were hung up with Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, and rightly so, the “lads” in England like The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the other artist featured here, Eric Clapton, were trying to get every blues record, city or country, they could lay their hands on.

Thus it seems fitting, in a way, that B.B. King and Eric Clapton, clearly two ambassadors for the blues should team up and let it rip through some of the classics of the genre. Now I have a confession to make. Although I have spilled much ink in this space on many old time blues artists, some well known, others strictly for aficionados, I have not mentioned B.B. King, except in passing. This is solely a matter of personal preference. B.B. and his ever present “Lucille”, with the exception of a few early numbers, never really “spoke” to me like Howlin’ Wolf, for one, did.

There is no question, however, that B.B. is a master on the guitar. Nor any question that he is a great bluesman in the old fashion sense and no question that when he teams up with Clapton here they “smoke” on some of the songs. So that only leaves what is good here. Well, certainly the title track, “Riding With The King”, the country blues classic, “Keys To The Highway”, “Worried Life Blues”, and “I Wanna Be”. Those will keep you jumpin’.



"Riding With The King" Lyrics


I dreamed I had a good job and I got well paid,
I blew it all at the penny arcade,
A hundred dollars on a cupid doll,
No pretty chick is gonna make me crawl,

And I teetered the way to the promised land,
Every woman, child and man,
Get your caddilac and a great big diamond ring,
Don't you know you're riding with the king?

He's on a mission of mercy, to the new fronteir,
He's gonna take us all outta' here,
Up to that mansion, on a hill,
Where you can get your prescription pill

And I teetered the way to the promised land,
Everybody clap your hands,
And don't you dirts love the way that he sings?
Don't you know you're riding with the king?
You're riding with the king!
Don't you know you're riding with the king?

A tuxedo and a shining green burning five,
You can see it in his face, the blues is alive,
Tonight everybody's getting their angel wings,
Don't you know you're riding with the king?

I stepped out of Mississippi when I was ten years old,
With a suit cut sharp as a razor and a heart made of gold.
I had a guitar hanging just about waist high,
And I'm gonna play this thing until the day I die.
Don't you know you're riding with the king?
Don't you know you're riding with the king?
(You're riding with me baby)
(You got good hands)
(Yes, you're riding with the king)
(I wanted to say B.B. King, but you know who the king is)

*Once More On The Post World War II Chicago Blues Explosion- The Work Of Master Blues Harmonica Player Sonny Boy Williamson

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Sonny Boy Williamson performing "Keep It To Yourself".


CD Review

Sonny Boy Williamson: His Best: 50th Anniversary Chess Edition, Sonny Boy Williamson, Chess Records, 1997

I hope I never get tired of reviewing the various blues greats that I have spent the better part of the last couple of years trying to highlight. And I probably won’t. However, one little problem tends to keep creeping up. Just when I think that I have hit all the blues high-binders that are possible to mention without just running out into the street and reviewing some itinerant street player along comes another one that it would be a sin, a mortal sin, not to mention. That is the case here with the work of Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Carter version, for those who want to get into that controversy over who the real Sonny Boy is, or was), master harmonica player, no, make that harmonica wizard.

One of the things that got added, significantly, when the blues went north to Chicago (and other such environs) and went electric in the post-World War II period was the increased use of the harmonica to drive the beat, or act as counter-point to it, as the case may be on any particular song . We all know, or should know, of the key role that Muddy Walters and his various bands played in this with the emergence of Little Walter and later James Cotton. Note should also be taken of Howlin’ Wolf’s role when he was in his prime, and drove everyone crazy with that voice and THAT harmonica he practically inhaled on things like “How Many More Years”. Well, how do you think these guys learned the tricks of the harmonica trade? One way or another at the feet of Sonny Boy.

And the proof? Well just take about ten out of the twenty selections in this 50th Anniversary of Chess Records edition. Perhaps any ten will do but here are my stick outs. Keep in mind that most of the lyrics are monstrously “politically incorrect” but “Keep It To Yourself,” “Your Funeral And My Trial,” Down Child,” and, the well-known “Help Me” are a good sampler.

Help Me

Sonny Boy Williamson

You got to help me
I can't do it all by myself
You got to help me, baby
I can't do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll have to find myself somebody else

I may have to wash
I may have to sew
I may have to cook
I might mop the floor
But you help me babe
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll find myself somebody else

When I walk, walk with me
When I talk, you talk to me
Oh baby, I can't do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll have to find myself somebody else
Help me, help me darlin'

Bring my nightshirt
Put on your morning gown
Bring my nightshirt
Put on your morning gown
Darlin I know we stripped bare
But I don't feel like lying down

by Willie Dixon


Blues Lyrics - Sonny Boy Williamson II
Your Funeral And My Trial

All rights to lyrics included on these pages belong to the artists and authors of the works.

All lyrics, photographs, soundclips and other material on this website may only be used for private study, scholarship or research.

by
Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller)

The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson (Chess/MCA 9343)

Please come home to your daddy, and explain yourself to me
Because I and you are man and wife, tryin' to start a family
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
If you can't treat me no better, it gotta be your funeral and my trial

When I and you first got together, 't was on one Friday night
We spent two lovely hours together, and the world knows alright
I'm just beggin' you baby, please cut out that off the wall jive
You know you gotta treat me better, if you don't it gotta be your funeral and my trial

Alright

The good Lord made the world and everything was in it
The way my baby love is some solid sentiment
She can love to heal the sick and she can love to raise the dead
You think I'm jokin' but you better believe what I say
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
Yeah, you gotta treat me better, or it gotta be your funeral and my trial

*In The Time Of The Chicago Blues Explosion- The Blues Of Earl Hooker

Click on title to link to Earl Hooker's lyrics and rendition of "You Shook Me Baby"

CD Review

Blue Guitar, Earl Hooker, Blues Interactions, 2001

I have spent a fair amount of time in this space running through the legends of the Chicago blues explosion that hit its high point in the period just after World War II and continued to the advent of serious rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-1950s, a period that saw the mass migration from the southern farms and plantations of blacks (and poor whites) to the north in search of better paying, and mainly, unionized industrial jobs. Thus, such names as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and so on have gotten plenty of ink here. But those names hardly exhaust the sheer mass of blues artists who fled the South (with a stopover down river in Memphis in many cases) to make their names on Chicago's Maxwell Street. The name Earl Hooker, under review here figures prominently, if not famously, as part of that plethora of talent.

Naturally, in my attempts in this space to link up the names of the blues artists who I fell in love with in my youth I have used many sources, or have been led to them in various ways. The case of Earl Hooker is illustrative. I, some time ago, did a review of a documentary on the late Clifford Antone’s Club Antone down in Austin, Texas where many of the great then still standing blues artists, who came of age in the 1950s, found a second home, and an extended career. As part of that documentary coverage the name Earl Hooker, naturally enough, came up. And hence I went scurrying back to my archives to check his work out again. This, unfortunately, is the only album of his that I still possess after all these year but it is rather indicative of his style and is a good primer.

Outstanding here are the smoking “Will My Man Be Home Tonight”, the classic “Calling All Blues”, his signature and title track “Blue Guitar”, and another smoking “Off The Hook”. For a close look at one of the guys who jammed with the likes of Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf, after hours when they got down and serious and played the music for keeps, here is a your first look.

Song Lyrics: Sweet Home Chicago
Written and recorded by: Robert Johnson (1936)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh baby don't you want to go
Oh baby don't you want to go
Back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

Oh baby don't you want to go
Oh baby don't you want to go
Back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

Now one and one is two
two and two is four
I'm heavy loaded baby
I'm booked I gotta go

Cryin baby
honey don't you want to go
back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

Now two and two is four
four and two is six
You gonna keep monkeyin round here friend-boy
you gonna get your business all in a trick

But I'm cryin baby
honey don't you wanna go
Back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

Now six and two is eight
eight and two is ten
Friend-boy she trick you one time
she sure gonna do it again

But I'm cryin hey hey
baby don't you want to go
back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

I'm goin to california
from there to Des Moines Iowa
Somebody will tell me that you
need my help someday

cryin hey hey
baby don't you want to go
back to the land of California
to my sweet home Chicago

© (1978) 1990, 1991 Lehsem II, LLC/Claud L. Johnson
Administered by Music & Media International, Inc.

Robert Johnson
(Robert Leroy Johnson)
May 8, 1911 - August 16, 1938



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also recorded by:
Johnny Shines, Foghat, Lonnie Pitchford,
Peter Green with Nigel Watson Splinter Group,
The King, Status Quo, Rocky Lawrence, Pyeng Threadgil,
Eric Clapton, Jim Belushi and The Sacred Hearts

*A Buddy Guy Encore- From The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection Series

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Buddy Guy performing Robert Johnson's classic "Sweet Home Chicago"

CD Review

Buddy’s Blues: Buddy Guy: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection, Buddy Guy and various musicians, MCA Records, 1997

I have spent a fair amount of time in this space running through the legends of the Chicago blues explosion that hit its high point in the period just after World War II and continued to the advent of serious rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-1950s, a period that saw the mass migration off the southern farms and plantations of blacks (and poor whites) to the north in search of better paying, and mainly, unionized industrial jobs. Thus, such names as Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and so on have gotten plenty of ink here. Strangely although the name Buddy Guy has been mentioned here many times this is the first CD by him that is being reviewed in this space. Strange, indeed.

That said, the name Buddy Guy also is usually uttered, reverently, around the same time that one speaks the name of master harmonica player, Junior Wells (Buddy's long time Chicago playing companion). And, of course when you say Junior Wells you, of necessity, have to speak about Muddy Waters, the 'Father' of all the post World War II Chicago blues. Here, however, Buddy stands alone in this 50th Anniversary of Chess Records series. I have reviewed other parts of this series elsewhere and find the material that is presented in each tends, very much so, to be "greatest hits"-type material. That is the case here as well, and I would add that the quality of the sound tends to a a bit better here than on some of the other efforts in this series. Still anyway you can hear that old 1950s blues sound when it was fresh and down grab the opportunity, with both hands.

Buddy Guy almost never has had a bad track so one has to go the other way and try to cull out the best. Here the classic "Pretty Baby is smokin', “My Love Is Real”, and “Stone Crazy” round out my picks as the top numbers.

Buddy Guy
Mustang Sally lyrics

Mustang Sally, guess you better slow your mustang down
Mustang Sally , baby, I guess you better slow your mustang down
You been a runnin' all over town, I guess I'll better put your big feet on the ground, oh yes, I will

All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride

One of these early mornings,
You gonna be wipin' your weepin' eyes, yes you will
I bought you a vintage mustang,
Of nineteen sixty-five
Now you comin' right signifyin' woman, no,
You don't wanna let me ride

Mustang Sally, baby, yeah,
I guess you better slow your mustang down, yes you will darling, I hope you will
Going around running' all over town,
I'm gonna put your big fat feet on the ground, oh yes Sally, well, look at here

All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is just ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is just ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
All you wanna do is ride around, Sally
Ride Sally ride
One of these early mornings
You gonna put your bad bad feet on the ground, oh yes I will, Sally

Sally ride Sally ride
Sally ride Sally ride
Ride Sally ride
Ride Sally ride
Ride Sally ride
Ride Sally ride

My Love Is Real lyrics :

My love for you is like, is like a sweet refrain
Real, real true love, is like a burning, burning flame
My love for you will live through storm and rain
My love, my love for you is real.
My love for you, words can never express

My love, my love for you is real.
God, God only knows, that I'll love you, love you best

With only you my love could ever rest
My love for you will live forever
If you love me, love me my darling
My love for you makes me want you near
Forever and a day
Won't you show me in your own sweet way?
Within, within my heart, I really need, need you dear

Sometimes true love can make a, make a man she'd tears
My love for you is real.

Oh, my love, oh my love for you is real.

*In Search Of The Roots, One More Time- The Music Of Louis Jordan and His Tymphany Five

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Louis Jordan.

DVD REVIEW

Louis Jordan And His Tymphany Five: Films And Soundies, Louis Jordan, Honey Carter and others, 2003

Okay, okay I admit that I have gone on and on in this recent quest to ‘find’ the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, the music of my youth. Early Sun Record recording artists like Elvis and Carl Perkins, of course, figure in the mix. Big Joe Turner and his seminal “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, naturally. The work of Little Milton, Ike Turner and others who came firing out of the R&B world in the early 1950’s, again a “no-brainer”. Hell, even some work like the later Bob Wills and His Texas Playboy are contenders. Today, though I am going back even a little further. Let’s try right after World War II and one Louis Jordan and His Tymphany Five.

If, as I believe, the critical mass for the evolution of rock ‘n’ roll comes primarily out of R&B and the blues tradition then Mr. Jordan and his “scat” message delivered in his own style has got to be, even if only archaeologically, part of the mix. This DVD under review only adds fuel to the fire as it provides us with music from three black audience-oriented films that featured the work of Jordan and His Tymphany Five (as well as some very fetching black women dancers, especially the frequently featured Honey Carter). Add some additional material from other sources labeled “soundies” here and you have a fairly complete repertoire of 35 pieces to work from.

Clearly some of the material from the films is strictly novelty stuff like the cowboy get ups, the military uniforms and other props in the various clips. Moreover, the strong sexual undertone provided by the appearance of those very fetching dancers (and assorted other female hangers-on) plays to something sexual and racial that would (and should not) not go down well with today’s audiences. The exploitation of black entertainers back in the day (or now, for that matter) as well as some very conscious stereotyping (like the rolling eyes, dreamy smiles, the Step-n-Fetchit-like routines, etc.) mars the effect of the music on some of these clips. However, pay attention to Mr. Jordan’s sax, the work of his band and the “jump” of his music. That is HIS legacy to the world of music. If you are interested in “roots” music, an archival slice of black musical history, well or poorly done, on film or why Louis Jordan is considered a major musical influence in some quarters look here.


Louis Jordan
Beans And Corn Bread lyrics

Beans and Cornbread,
Beans and Cornbread had a fight.
Beans knocked Cornbread out of sight.
Cornbread said, "Now that's alright, meet me on the corner tomorrow
Night."
"I'll be ready, I'll be ready tomorrow night,"
That's what Beans said to Cornbread . "I'll be

Louis Jordan
Roamin' Blues lyrics

Left Chicago in the summer, New York in the fall,
Detroit in the winter didn't prove a thing at all
I got those roamin' blues
Yes I got those roamin' blues
Can't find no place to settle
Woo I got those roamin' blues
Joined a club in old Saint Louis, that G.I. free loot club
Stood in line so long man, wore my legs down to a nub
I hit the road again
Yes I hit the road again
Can't find no place to settle
So I hit the road again
I thought I'd made it Jack in good old Albuquerq'
I was on the wrong track, you know they tried to make me work
- ain't that a killer?
I hit the road right quick
Yes that judge was much too slick
Can't find no place to settle
Woo I hit the road right quick
Then Las Vegas was the next stop, that fast town left me weak
The dice man made twelve passes and I was up the well-known creek
Those gamblers put me down
Yes I had to walk right out of town
Mm-mm, that ain't no place to settle
Mmm, I had to walk right out of town
Ah but I hit the greatest town of all, Frantic Frisco
Got me a gal with plenty gold and she just won't let me go
I think I've found a place
Yes I got my boots all laced
Found me a home, don't have to roam, it's good news,
I've lost those roamin' blues


Louis Jordan
But I'll Be Back lyrics


I'm goin' ,
But I'll be back!
Look for me,
You'll see that I'll be back!
Gonna bring my mom and pop,
And I'm gonna bring a cop,
Gonna make you give me back my love
Before I blow my top!
I'll get ya
Before I stop
Baby, you can't take my love and let me drop!
I've decided you must know
That I can't let you go;
It's time for me to blow,
But I'll be back!
I'll get ya
Before I stop;
Babe, you can't take my love and let me drop!
I've decided you must know
That I can't let you go;
It's time for me to blow,
But I'll be back!

Louis Jordan
Away From You lyrics

It made me cry
To say good-bye,
I'm sad and blue;
Now that you've gone
I can't go on
Away from you.
I smile to hide
The tears inside,
It's hard to do;
My happiness,
My life's success
Depends on you.
The hours seem long,
The world goes wrong,
When we're apart;
My skies are gray,
What can I say
To soothe my heart?
It is the end;
I can't pretend
That I'm not blue;
Oh, can't you see
Life's misery
Away from you!
The hours are long,
The world goes wrong,
When we're apart;
My skies are gray,
What can I say
To soothe my heart?
It is the end;
I can't pretend
That I'm not blue;
Oh, can't you see
Life's misery
Away from you!
Away from you!

Louis Jordan
But I'll Be Back lyrics

I'm goin' ,
But I'll be back!
Look for me,
You'll see that I'll be back!
Gonna bring my mom and pop,
And I'm gonna bring a cop,
Gonna make you give me back my love
Before I blow my top!
I'll get ya
Before I stop
Baby, you can't take my love and let me drop!
I've decided you must know
That I can't let you go;
It's time for me to blow,
But I'll be back!
I'll get ya
Before I stop;
Babe, you can't take my love and let me drop!
I've decided you must know
That I can't let you go;
It's time for me to blow,
But I'll be back!