Thinking Jazz and Classical were my go-to genres when I got tired of pop music, I was shocked to realize how many blues albums I had gotten recently. (FYI, anything less than a decade counts as "recently".)
While I had dipped into the blues via white artists during my youth, I got the impression that I liked it. But then a decade or so later while out driving on a beautiful summer Saturday afternoon, I put on my local Americana station which was playing actual blues at the time, not the white guys with the perfect technique but no singing (or writing) chops doing their serious version of "Ukelele Blues". Was it Robert Johnson playing acoustic? Muddy Waters playing electric with no accompaniment? I forget, but whatever it was, I shook my head, knowing that I just couldn't get into it on such a nice day. I needed to hear nice day-driving music, which is usually some form of pop. Perhaps if I were sitting on a porch in Mississippi...
I was dismayed. Didn't I enjoy Cream, the Allman Brothers, and Mike Bloomfield? (Not so much John Mayall and the Blues Brothers.) I feared I was becoming a racist - or worse - a mere dilettante, vanity being my main motivational force.
Or was I slowly becoming the oblivious middle-aged codger-to-be who thought he was liberal, but who just didn't get what the kids were going on about, either musically or politically?
But I let it go, for quite a while.
The breaking point came one day when I suddenly realized I was getting all my clothes from Costco. Something had to be done.
The situation called for immersion. So about 25 years ago, I got the four-CD box set Chess Blues which is an anthology of the many artists who recorded for that label for the two decades following World War II. And it worked! It proved I did like this music, which was largely electric Chicago-style blues.
Encouraged I got a few compilations of Buddy Guy, Bessie Smith, and Elmore James, all good to great. But in 2017 two early sixties Howlin' Wolf albums (not compilations, either) completely bowled me over.
Alas, some squirrels named Jazz, Classical, and a new one - AfroPop - came into my line of vision, and there went five or six years.
I guess it was my unconscious that determined it was time again to dig in again. And who deserved my attention more than BB King? Yeah, Live at the Regal, was fine, but BB deserved more attention than that.
While I do wish there was a greater focus on the 1950s and 1960s since things start to get a little schlocky after that, this career-spanning box set is as good as it could possibly be.
Now I could finally hear BB's guitar in all its glory. He rivals Neil Young for minimal guitar technique. But edges him out for pure expressiveness.
Ditto the singing. Which is the secret ingredient the white bands tend to miss. Oh, and songs, too.
All of those elements together - not just a blazing lead guitar - make the magic happen.
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The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson
Sonny Boy's a real piece of work. First, steals the original Sonny Boy Williamson's identity. Well, not exactly. But he does steal his stage name. Suddenly there were two SBWs and the audience voted with their feet. SBW 2.0 ruled.
Then he writes a bunch of songs about getting caught doing shady stuff, like “One Way Out” (later covered by the Allmans). In another song, he admonishes a woman he’s been cheating with to not tell her husband or his wife. Then, when someone gets fed up and pushes back a little, he sings he's “scared of that child".
And yet, he’s not short of advice for how other folks can keep their noses clean. So the man's got nerve.
At the beginning of a recording session for "Little Village", his producer had the audacity to inquire what the name of the song was. Sonny Boy - after first lobbing some general abuse at him, eventually suggested he name it after his mama.
So why do I like it so much? Because he’s fun. He's the shady friend who gets you thrown in jail, but you remember it fondly. Unlike Lou Reed, who couldn't even guarantee a good time. But like Lou Reed, there are casualties, most notably the first SBW.
And unlike Reed, Sonny Boy always had a great band with him. Maybe not technically the best, but who provided the exact right amount of raunch.
And he's one helluva harmonica player.
One caveat: Mrs. Jaybee says “It all sounds the same”.
My rebuttal: "And, your point is...?"
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"Bring It On Home" (with a middle finger to Led Zeppelin)
RCA Victor Rhythm & Blues Revue
This collection opens with Lil Green singing "Romance in the Dark", where she gets so excited her man has to tell her to keep it down. It ends with the Isley Brothers' "Shout". Thematically, if not musically, correct.
Along the way run into Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Illinois Jacquet, Count Basie, King Curtis, and a young and unrecognizable Little Richard.
The performances are spirited, if not quite on the level of, say, Township Jazz and Jive but very fine nonetheless.
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Fleetwood Mac: Live at the Boston Tea Party, Vol. 1 (1970)
This is the Peter Green Edition of the Mac. Version 1.0, if you will. Version 2.0 was the Christine McVie/Bob Welch era, and v3.0 was, well, you know.
Version 2 was about blues guitars. That's plural, by the way. Second guitarist Danny Kirwan was damn near as good as Green. While this does not have that Allmans at Fillmore level of intensity, it's close. The songs are mostly blues covers, which is just fine by me.
BB King once said of Peter Green, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats." And his technique, while not quite virtuosic, was still a perfect match for it. Not technically flawless yet exquisite.
Oh, and Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. How could you go wrong?
The singing is not phenomenal but, in retrospect, you can detect that Green had his own unique type of blues to express.
It's not all blues here, but it's too good to exclude here.
Green had begun hanging around with the Grateful Dead around the time of this recording, and by an extraordinary coincidence, he began taking LSD. He also had no interest in fame and wanted to give away any money he made. He must have sensed that the Mac was on the verge of a breakthrough to the big time, so not long after this performance, he left.
His sad, interesting story is here.
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Well, I'm expecting a squirrel or two to drop by sooner or later. So I had to get this off my chest while I had the chance. So I'll be on my way to Costco to pick up some formalwear...
Wait! What's that over there??
