*The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- In Pete Seeger's House- "Rainbow Quest"-Sonny Terry And Brownie McGhee

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Pete Seeger's now famous 1960s (black and white, that's the give-away)"Rainbow Quest" for the performer in this entry's headline.

Markin comment:

This series, featuring Pete Seeger and virtually most of the key performers in the 1960s folk scene is a worthy entry into the folk archival traditions for future revivalists to seek out. There were thirty plus episodes (some contained more than one performer of note, as well as Pete solo performances). I have placed the YouTube film clips here one spot over four days, November 10-13, 2009 for the reader's convenience.

*Has He Got His Mojo Workin'? - The Blues Harmonica Of The Late James Cotton

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of James Cotton Doing "Slow Blues". Yes, now you know why he played with Muddy Waters.

Has He Got His Mojo Workin'? - The Blues Harmonica Of James Cotton

CD REVIEW

Got My Mojo Workin’, James Cotton and his band, Blu Mountain Records, 2003

I have, over the past year or so, spent some time tracing the roots of the blues from its southern country home, mainly on the plantations, farms and small towns that surround them, through its transition into the larger cities of the South where the crowds and hence the lyrics got more sophisticated and, ultimately, to the blues Mecca, Chicago, and other Northern cities where blacks migrated en masse between the two world wars and in the immediate post World War II period. As part of that exposition I have discussed not only the differences in the lyrics reflecting the changeover from the moaning and groaning of the plantation life to the hyper-intensity of city life. I have also mentioned the key change in the guitar going from some old acoustic instrument to the electric guitar of the cities.

Along the way I have failed to mention, or not mentioned enough, some of the other changes in instrumentation. For one, and this is relevant here, the harmonica. This instrument, as an accompanying sound, has a long history beyond its key place in the blues saga. However, with the citification of the blues its role in a blues band as back up to those electric guitars and drums became more central. In short, a strong harmonica player became necessary to fill in the spaces left by the reverberating guitar. Correspondingly, virtuosity on the harmonica brought its own rewards. I would argue that Sonny Boy Williamson's role in this change was key in the 1920's and 1930's followed by Lil' Walter of the early Muddy Waters Band. And who followed Walter - well, the artist under review here, James Cotton.

Like all talented musicians with any sense of leadership James Cotton, after serving his long apprenticeship with Muddy Waters, went on to form his own band. This CD is one of the results of those efforts. James, as always, plays the bejesus out of the harmonica. His backup band is a little more than adequate. The gruff-voiced Cotton does so-so a job on the vocals. However, this album left me drifting in and out. Some tracks are very fine like "Fanny Mae", "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and the title track "Got My Mojo Workin'". However, such numbers as "Goodbye My Lady", "Teenie Weenie Bit" and Help Me" seemed forced. I confess this is the only CD of Cotton's that I have reviewed but off of this performance I sure wish he had been back with Muddy wailing out on something like "Hootchie Gootchie Man".
Got My Mojo Working

by Preston Foster / McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters

Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do

I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm gonna have all you women right here at my command

Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you

Play on!

Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it - uh uh - just won't work on you

__________
Note: the original version of Got My Mojo Working was sung in a jump blues style by Ann Cole. She performed the song on stage in 1956, which was how Muddy Waters found the song!. Muddy Waters adapted it to his style but the bassline is still the same. The song can be found on the 1999 Rhino Records anthology album Jump, Jive & Swing. These are the lyrics to the original version as sung by Ann Cole and written by Preston Foster:

FANNIE MAE

Well I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
Oh I ain't in any trouble and so much misery
Now Fannie Mae, baby won't you please come home
Fannie Mae ae ae, baby won't you please come home
Yeah I ain't been in debt baby since you been gone
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I want to know pretty love how do I win my time

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

I no o o o for me, I no-o-o-o for me
Well I ain't been in trouble and so much misery

Song Lyrics: Good Morning Little School Girl

Written and Recorded by: Sonny Boy Williamson II (1937)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good mornin' 'lil school girl,
can I go home, can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father,
I'm a little school boy too

Woke up this mornin',
woke up this mornin',
I didn't know what to,
I didn't know what to do
I didn't have no blues,
baby, bit I couldn't be satisfied

I'm gettin' me an airplane,
I'm gettin' me an airplane,
get in my airplane
Gon' fly all oh-oh, gon' fly all over this land
I'm gonna find my little school girl,
find her in the world somewhere

Good mornin' 'lil school girl,
good mornin' 'lil school girl
Can I go home with, can I go home with,
can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father,
Johnny little school boy too

Come be my baby, come be my baby,
I buy you a diamond, I buy you a diamond ring
You don't be my little baby,
I ain't gonna buy you a doggone ring

Out In The 1920s Blues Harp Night- “Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s”- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of old time blues harmonica player Junior Gillum performing his classic The Devil’s Blues.

CD Review

Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s, various artists, Yazoo Records, 1991

I have endlessly mentioned the old time pre-city blues (cities, mainly upriver Memphis, Chicago and Detroit) migration (and electrification) of the blues as it came out of the Mississippi Delta (and other southern ports of call like Alabama and North Carolina but centrally Mississippi burning country in jim crow days. Back in those days it was played, among other places like hellhole Parchman’s Farm prison and the like, in hard-bitten, hard drinking, hard lovin’ and hard repentin’ Saturday nights at juke joints. Joints which due to a little electrical problem (none) meant that you have to drink your whisky in the dark (or kind of), doing your lovin’, well you know what I mean, in the dark and your two-fisted fighting over some roaming –eyed woman in the darks as well.

What you also needed to do, if you were a musical performer, was set your instruments to that non-electric night. And hence the guitar (primitive or National Steel), the fiddle, and the instrument featured in this review, Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s,
had their heyday as weapons of choice for those who ventured into the 1920s blues night.

And this nice little treasure trove CD compilation gives you the best of the bunch who were recorded in those late 1920s and early 1930s days (before the great storm depression blew what little discretionary income there was all away) and one, if one so chooses can hear the long forgotten, for the most part, harmonica players, who influenced later legends like James Cotton, Junior Wells and, of course, Sonny Boy Williamson. The harmonica work is obviously as not as powerful as later when someone like Howlin’ Wolf practically devours the damn thing putting up against a jacked-up microphone on a song like “How Many More Years” but the basic configurations are in place here. Moreover this CD has a roll call of the best, including Jazz Gillum, Jaybird Coleman , and Deford Bailey. And, as always with a Yazoo production, an informative sheet with all kind of interesting facts about the performers and the milieu is included.

*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

*The Hoodoo Man Is In The House- The Harmonica Blues Of Junior Wells

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Junior Wells Doing "Hoodoo Man".

DVD REVIEW

Don’t Start Me Talking: The Junior Wells Story, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and various artists and commentators, Sony, 2005

The last time that the name Junior Wells was mentioned in this space was when he was referenced in a review of the work of legendary Chicago blues guitarist and his long time musical companion, Buddy Guy. Starting in the late 1950's those names, more often than not, were linked together as among the hottest sounds to come out of clubs and other venues during that fantastic period of the reemergence of the Chicago blues. Well today is Junior's turn in the spotlight in this informative hour and one half review of the ups and downs of his musical and personal life.

The personal part of Junior's life is not an unfamiliar one when detailing the life stories of many of the great black blues musicians who made a name for themselves in Chicago, the "Mecca" of the electric blues. Born down South on the farm, enduring a hard scrabble childhood, coming up North, hungry. Sound familiar? And, as in many other cases concerning the hungry part including Junior's case, almost literally so. But these guys and gals (think of Koko Taylor, an interviewee here) ready to do anything to get out of the South of the hard luck farms and the plantations, to speak nothing of Jim Crow. Chicago-bound was Junior's cry, as well. But there were a million guys trying to work Maxwell Street and get the bright light attention of the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf in the late 1950's. Somehow, through thick and thin and some toying around the edges of the criminal life, sheer talent and energy, Junior survived and got his big chance with Muddy. The rest, as they say, is history.

Junior's story is told here in a number of ways. Mainly there are personal interviews with him about his sometimes rocky way to blues stardom. Then there are personal and musical testimonials from the likes of the above-mentioned Buddy Guy and long time Wells band member Lonnie Brooks (worthy of his own separate review in his well-travelled blues career). Finally, there is the seemingly inevitable roundtable group of commentators who throw out various tidbits about Junior's life, his recording career and his character, including important information for the blues archivist about the Delmark Records production of the album "Hoodoo Man" and from his first manager, the ubiquitous Dick Waterman. The results are an inside look into one of the key Chicago blues figures who carried on the tradition from the post-World War II blues giants like Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon. Nice.



"Hoodoo Man"

Lord, I wonder what's the matter, I'm crying all the
time
The minutes seem like hours, everything's the same
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand
Somebody done tell me, Junior, somebody done
hoodoo
the hoodoo man
I buzzed your bell this morning, elevator running
slow
I buzzed your bell this morning, take me up to your
third floor.
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand
I'm gonna tell you one time, ain't gonna tell you no
more
If I have to tell you again, I'm gonna let you go
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand

"Checkin' On My Baby"


Checkin' on my baby, see what she puttin' down
So many days and nights I been out of town
I wouldn't call home, and I wouldn't even write
I bought me a plane and flew back the same night
Checkin' on my baby, find out what she puttin' down
Checkin' up on my baby, find out what she puttin'
down
So many nights and days I been out of town



"Good Mornin' Lil' Schoolgirl"


Good morning, little schoolgirl, can I go home with
you?
Tell your mother and your poppa, I'm a little
schoolboy too
Lord, I love you baby, just can't help myself
Don't care how you treat me, baby, I don't want nobody
else
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Oohweeh, I'm gonna leave you baby, one of these old
days
On account of how you treat me, baby, I'm gonna stay
away
Good morning, little schoolgirl, can I go home with
you?
Come on now, pretty baby, come one home with me
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Ooh, oohweeh, I'm gonna buy an airplane, fly all over
your town
Tell everybody, baby, Lord knows you're fine
I can't stand it, baby, just can't help myself
You're so young and pretty, you love somebody else
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Ooh, oohweeh!



"My Baby She Left Me"


When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When her train left the station that old mule laid
down and died
Man I sent this woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Lord I sent that woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Now if that don't bring her back, I'm sure this old
shotgun will
Lake Michigan ain't no river, Chicago ain't no hill
town
Lake Michigan ain't no river, Chicago ain't no hill
town
If I feel like this tomorrow I'm gonna clear out be
back down Memphis bound
I'll be standing down on the landing when the big boat
pull off and roll
I'll be standing on the landing when the big boat pull
off and roll
I'll be hopin' I'll be prayin' I don't see your face
no more
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When her train left the station that old mule laid
down and died
Lord I sent this woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Man I sent my baby a brand new twenty dollar bill
Now if that don't bring her back, I'm sure my shotgun
will



"Messin' With The Kid"


What's this a-here goin' all around town
The people they say they're gonna put the kid down
Oh no, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
You know the kid's no child, and I don't play
I says what I mean and I mean what I say
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
You know the kid's no child, and I don't play
I says what I mean and I mean what I say
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
We're gonna take the kid's car and drive around town
Tell everybody you're not puttin' him down
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the...