Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of "Big Mama" Thornton (with Lightnin' Hopkins) on her classic, "Ball 'n Chain."
CD REVIEW
February Is Black History Month
As those familiar with this space know I have spent a good amount of ink touting various old time blues legends that I ‘discovered’ in my youth. My intention, in part, is to introduce a new generation to this roots music but also to demonstrate a connection between this black-centered music and the struggle for black liberation that both blacks and whites can appreciate. Like virtually all forms of music that lasts more than five minutes the blues has had its ups and downs. After becoming electric and urbanized in the immediate post-World War II period it was eclipsed by the advent of rock&roll then made a comeback in the mid- 1960's with the surge of English bands that grew up on this music, and so on. Most recently there was mini-resurgence with the justifiably well-received Martin Scorsese PBS six-part blues series in 2003. A little earlier, in the mid-1990’s, there had also been a short-lived reemergence spearheaded by the ‘discovery’ of urban blues pioneer Robert Johnson’s music.
The long and short of this phenomenon is that commercial record production of this music waxed and waned reflecting that checkered history. I have, in the interest of variety for the novice, selected these CDs as a decent cross-section of blues (and its antecedents in earlier forms of roots music) as to gender, time and type. The following reviewed CDs represent first of all an attempt by record companies to meet the 1990’s surge. They also represent a hard fact of musical life. Like rock&roll the blues will never die. Praise be. Feast on these compilations.
Feeling So Good, And That Ain’t No Lie
Living The Blues: Blues Classic, 1965-1969, Masters, MCA Records, 1995
1965-1969 represented something a mini-resurgence of electric blues in the wake of the British rock groups’ infatuation with this music. The main cast of characters here is the same as on the previously reviewed CDs, "Blues Masters" and "Blues Legends". Naturally Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker do their thing. However the real treat here is “Big Mama” Thornton doing her version of “Ball and Chain". While everyone appreciated rocker Janis Joplin’s version after hearing this one again (after not hearing it for a while- Janis step back please and let “Big Mama” show what’s what). Additionally, we finally get a little of the old Cajun influence-blues with Chifton Chenier on a sizzling “Black Gal”. More on Cajun later. For now this CD is fine although I would rate as the third choice of the three being reviewed in this series.
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