The Real Blues Brothers

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells

As far as "Blues Brothers" go, Jake and Elwood are mere pretenders to the throne.  In fact, they're probably not even in the Top Five of Blues Brothers all time.  I could think of several others that qualify, even some that are actually brothers (a topic for another day).  Today, we'll discuss a pair that played together, off and on, for nearly forty years, and came as close to being "Blues Brothers" as you possibly can without being related.

Buddy Guy and Junior Wells formed one of the most formidable and longest-lasting partnerships in the blues, their recording history spanning from Wells sitting in on Guy's 1960 session for Chess, which produced memorable tracks like "Let Me Love You," to their swan song as a duo, a live recording at Guy's Legends in the early 90's.  In between, they toured most of the world, opened for the Rolling Stones, recorded with blues legends like Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, and others....and rock stars like Eric Clapton, Dr. John, the J. Geils Band, Bill Wyman.....

Despite their closeness in age (Wells was born in 1934 and Guy in 1936), Junior Wells was considerably more experienced than Guy when they met.  Wells moved to Chicago as a youngster and by the age of eleven, he was playing harmonica in blues clubs throughout the Windy City.  As a youngster, Wells met Memphis native Little Junior Parker, who piqued his interest in harmonica.  He soon teamed up with guitarists Louis and David Myers and drummer Fred Below and their band, the Aces, soon became one of the toughest bands in Chicago, rivalling even the Muddy Waters Band.

Guy actually saw Wells perform as part of a concert given at his high school in Baton Rouge in the early 50's.  By that time, Wells had recorded several of his standard tunes ("Messin' With The Kid," "Hoodoo Man Blues," "Come On In This House") and had replaced Little Walter in Muddy Waters' band.  He was not yet twenty years old.

Buddy Guy didn't make it to Chicago until September of 1957.  He had been playing in Louisiana with Raful Neal and he cut a demo, called "Baby Don't You Wanna Come Home" at the Baton Rouge radio station WXOK.  He decided to try his luck in Chicago because that was where the biggest names were playing.  Guy was influenced by two artists as a youngster.....B. B. King and Guitar Slim.  "I wanted to play like B. B. but act like Guitar Slim," he said in his autobiography, Damn Right I've Got The Blues, but it was in Chicago where Guy developed his own distinctive sound. 

There were so many great guitarists in Chicago at the time that Guy initially had difficulty getting work.  Otis Rush gave him one of his first real opportunities at the 708 Club and Guy never looked back.  He eventually gained confidence playing with and against the likes of Rush, Earl Hooker, Louis and David Myers, Magic Sam, Wayne Bennett, and Matt Murphy.

In 1958, there was a "Battle of the Blues" held at The Blue Flame Club.  Competitors included Wells, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, and Buddy Guy.  Wells nearly carried the day, but according to Howlin' Wolf guitarist Abe "Little Smokey" Smothers, Guy won over the crowd with his theatrics, which included throwing his guitar up in the air and catching with one hand while letting the guitar neck slip down while he squeezed the strings.  This emitted a crying sound that ended his solo.  This led to Guy's recordings for Artistic and Cobra and also backing Magic Sam on some of his Cobra recordings.  He then moved to Chess after Cobra folded.

Soon, Guy and Wells fell in together doing regular gigs at Theresa's and Pepper's and became virtually inseparable.  By the mid 60's, Wells was set to record an album for Robert Koester's Delmark Records, a tiny blues and jazz label in Chicago.  Koester had seen Wells perform with Guy's band and wanted to record them just as they played live.  Koester had a different approach from most record labels at the time, like Leonard Chess, who wanted singles for airplay and a style that would attract teen buyers.  He didn't want the three minute versions of the band's repertoire....he wanted the songs played just as the band played them at Theresa's and Pepper's. 

At first, Wells was hesitant because Delmark was a small jazz-oriented label and he figured the record wouldn't sell that well, but when he approached Guy with it, the guitarist was eager to do it.  Hoodoo Man Blues is considered by many to be the first actual album of blues that was originally intended to be an album, not a collection of singles.  The album proved to be Delmark's biggest seller ever, and continues to sell remarkably well today.  On the original release, Guy was under contract to Chess Records and had to be listed in the credits as "Friendly Chap."  However, once you hear the guitar, there's no doubt who is backing Wells.  Here's an alternate take of the title cut, with some interesting guitar from Guy.  According to Bob Koester, Guy was having problems with his amp, so they amplified his guitar through a Hammond B3 for a couple of tracks, giving it a shimmering, eerie feel. 



That was only the beginning.  The duo continued to record together for Delmark and eventually Vanguard (beginning with four songs on the classic collection, Chicago/The Blues/Today!) in the 60's.  They even toured Africa separately and then as a team.  They also recorded separately with their own bands during this time and both released some of their best recordings with these two labels, including Wells' It's My Life, Baby and Southside Blues Jam (both with Guy on guitar) and Guy's A Man And The Blues (with the immortal Otis Spann on piano).  Here's a cut from their first Vanguard session, "Help Me," Wells' tribute to one of his mentors, Sonny Boy Williamson II."

In the early 70's, Atco Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records, brought the two together to record with Eric Clapton behind the board.  Clapton had played with them during their European tour with the Rolling Stones.  Unfortunately, Clapton was deep into his heroin addiction and didn't bring his "A" game to the proceedings.  It should have been the duo's big break, but ended up on the shelf for two years before finally being released with members of the J. Geils Band adding instrumentation to a couple of tracks to make a full album.  Though there are some nice moments on the recording, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues' main significance was the fact that it's the first album to feature both Guy and Well's names on the album cover with equal billing.  Here's one of the high points of the album, "My Baby She Left Me," another Sonny Boy Williamson song.

The pair continued recording throughout the seventies, for European labels during their regular tours.  They recorded two sets at Montreux, one in 1974 with Bill Wyman and Pinetop Perkins that was released by Blind Pig as Drinkin' TNT 'N' Smokin' Dynamite, and the other in 1977 with Jimmy Johnson, Dave Myers, and Odie Payne that was reissued in the U.S. by Evidence Records in the 90's as Live in Montreux.  Better yet was a set recorded in studio in 1979 for Isabel Records called Pleading the Blues.  This stellar set featured Guy and Wells with Buddy's brother Phil on rhythm guitar, J. W. Williams on bass, and Ray "Killer" Allison on drums.  It was recorded at the same time that Buddy Guy used this same band to record Blues Giant, which was later picked up domestically by Alligator and retitled Stone Crazy.  All in all, that was a very productive day for both artists.  Unfortunately Pleading The Blues didn't get issued in the U.S. until the mid 90's, also by Evidence Records.

Over the years, they became like brothers, good friends at times, fierce rivals at others.  There was some artistic differences and some personality clashes.  Buddy Guy probably explained it best in his autobiography:  

"When we was in Boston, the guy from the Globe called up and said, 'I understand you guys don't get along.'  I don't know how they could get that, you know.  As long as I been dealing with this guy, if we didn't get along, you wouldn't see us smiling.  So I don't know how people could look at us and feel like we don't get along.  I just get tired of Junior sometimes.  I look into his face more than I do my wife's." 

Junior Wells had his own thoughts about their friendship:

"I don't have a brother, but Buddy felt like a brother to me after we got into doing things and got messing around, shucking here and shucking there about this and that.  I'll tell Buddy things I won't tell nobody.  Buddy talks to me about things he won't talk to nobody else about because he knows it will go no further than what me and him said."

They played together occasionally in the 80's, when record deals were few and far between.  Guy recorded a few albums for the British label, JSP, in the late 70's and 80's, but Junior was silent on the recording scene for the most part during the 80's.  They did appear at the 1989 JazzFest in New Orleans.  I got to see them at JazzFest.  I never saw Junior Wells perform solo in person except on TV appearances, but I did get to see Guy a couple of years later just before he really hit big with his Silvertone debut in 1991.  While I thought he was good solo, I really thought that they brought out the best in each other when they performed together.  Where Guy could sometimes be undisciplined as a solo, he stayed pretty grounded during the appearance I caught of him with Wells, and on other appearances I've seen on YouTube and other places.  From all accounts, Wells was a pretty tough taskmaster as a bandleader and obviously it rubbed off on Guy when they played together.

As mentioned, Guy's star took off in the 90's, when he scored a deal with Silvertone Records and played in some big venues with the likes of Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Wells landed a deal with Telarc in the early 90's, too, and after a couple of disappointments, he really hit his stride with a live disc recorded at Guy's club, Legends, and a disc featuring Wells with a host of slide guitarists.  Soon after, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, passing away in early 1998.

Guy and Wells' recording legacy wasn't finished though.  Fortunately, someone had the foresight to record the duo in an acoustic setting at Legends a few years before, in 1993, and Silvertone released the disc about six months after Wells' death.  It was a fitting farewell to one of the greatest and longest partnerships in the blues.  It had been several years since they played together and they were obviously glad to be doing so again, as evidenced by this cut from the album, a medley of Jimmy Reed tunes called, "Seeds of Reed."

Guy, now 74, still continues to amaze and dazzle.  He's got a new disc, Living Proof, out this week....an autobiographical disc of sorts, that ranks with his best since his return to recording in the 90's.  As for Junior Wells.....even though he's been gone a dozen years now, Delmark is keeping his memory alive with some fantastic live recordings from the 60's and 70's that capture him at his best.  There's lots of product out there for both artists, together and solo.....nearly all of it is worth a listen.

Classic Live Blues - Newport Folk Festival: Best of the Blues 1959 - 68

About two years into my discovery of the blues, I became curious about the older blues artists......the ones who recorded and performed in the 20's and 30's.  I was already familiar with Robert Johnson, because you could still find his music in stores, but it was pretty hard to track down anything else from other artists of his era.  I had read about many of them in Living Blues because LB often had reviews of album collections of these artists, but I really didn't know how to get started on listening, or what to listen to.

I was familiar with Vanguard Records because I had picked up a couple of great albums from the label.....Buddy Guy's A Man and the Blues and Junior Wells' It's My Life Baby.  I had actually found both of those in a mall record store (remember Camelot Music?), but that was about it.  Back then, if a record store had three columns of cassettes on their wall, I considered myself fortunate.

I also ran across Peter Guralnick's Feel Like Going Home, which I discussed in detail back in FBF's early days.  Guralnick had included chapters in this wonderful book on a couple of early blues pioneers, Skip James and Robert Pete Williams.  The Skip James chapter in particular was fascinating, and it really encouraged me to want to hear him, but as mentioned above, recordings of early blues artists were pretty scarce at record stores in my neck of the woods.  Of course, newer listeners may not be able to understand how hard it was for blues fans at the time to check out music in the days before the internet, when today it takes about two clicks of a mouse to pull the Skip James song of your choice up for your listening pleasure.

One day, while in a Jackson, MS mall, I happened upon Blues At Newport, a collection from Vanguard that captured highlights of the Newport Folk Festival between 1959 and 1964.  I saw a few familiar names on the track list, including James and Williams, along with John Lee Hooker and Reverend Gary Davis, another artist I had read about in Living Blues, but had never actually heard.  Needless to say, my curiosity was piqued and I hurried to the counter with my copy in hand.

Sadly, there was only one song from Skip James, and a pair from Williams and Davis, but I also got to hear Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Robert Wilkins, and Sleepy John Estes for the first time. My blues horizons were expanded greatly from this release, and I began to dig a little deeper into the catalogs of some of these artists, finding Vanguard's Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt releases and diving off into the extensive Yahoo Records discography.  However, even with finding additional recordings, I often returned to the Newport album....I think it was because the live setting really gave the music a more personal feel.

Around 2001, Vanguard embiggened their Newport blues recording by offering a 3-CD set of festival performances, dating from 1959 to 1968.  Newport Folk Festival:  Best of the Blues 1959-68 took many of the songs from the earlier single disc set and added two whole discs of songs from multiple artists.....several from the original release and many others, such as Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Bukka White, and Son House.  This actually slipped past me when it was originally released and somehow, I never even knew about it until a few weeks ago, when I saw it on Amazon.

The Newport Folk Festival was started in 1959, by George Wein, as a counterpart to the ongoing Newport Jazz Festival.  Music fans owe more than they will ever know to Wein, who started these two festivals, plus the Playboy Jazz Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.  While the Folk Festival definitely features folk music, it also showcases blues, country, bluegrass, rock, and Americana.

Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt

It was around this time that many older blues artists were being rediscovered, such as John Hurt, Bukka White, Skip James, and Son House.  All of these artists eventually showed up at Newport to play.  For many of them, it went beyond the $50 fee they received for their 15 or so minutes of performing.  Many of the record companies at the time had representatives there, and a lot of these artists were able to sign deals with various labels, based on their performances.  Hurt and James signed with Vanguard Records, White with Takoma, and House with Columbia.

Best of the Blues 1959-68 is divided into three CDs.  The first disc is called Delta Blues, and features 17 tracks from Hurt, James, House, White, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and a pair of acoustic tracks from Muddy Waters.  The second is called Country Blues and features Robert Pete Williams, Mance Lipscomb, Jesse Fuller, Reverend Gary Davis, and the duo of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry.  The third is called Urban Blues and showcases Lightnin' Hopkins, Memphis Slim, John Lee Hooker, Waters and Otis Spann, the Chambers Brothers, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

On Delta Blues, you get a great glimpse of Mississippi John Hurt.  He obviously won over the crowd with his amiable personality and his sweet, gentle brand of blues.  Hurt sounded just as good as he did on his 1928 recordings, and his six tracks get the disc off to a nice start.  His diverse repertoire and guitar playing influenced many blues and folk artists and some of his songs ("Coffee Blues" and "Candy Man") are still favorites.

Skip James at Newport

James and House provided a sharp contrast to Hurt's songs.  I can only imagine what the crowd's reaction was when James sang the first notes of his "Devil Got My Woman."  Dick Waterman, whose wonderful photos brought the festival to life for numerous blues fans, is quoted in the liner notes describing his reaction to James' singing:

"He took that first note up in falsetto all the way, and the hairs on the back of my neck went up, and all up and down my arms, the hairs just went right up.  Even now I get a reaction to that note when I listen to the recording......It's almost a wail.  It's a cry.  There was an audible gasp from the audience."

That performance is on this collection, and I'm pretty sure that most listeners will get the same reaction when they hear it for the first time.  I know I did.  It STILL gives me goose bumps.  The video below is not from Newport, but you will get the idea.

Son House

For sheer intensity, it's hard, or impossible, to top Son House, both on his guitar and vocally.  He does four mesmerizing songs on this set, including "Preaching Blues" and the harrowing "Death Letter."  House was a huge influence on many of the later generation of blues men, such as Muddy Water and Howlin' Wolf and was a revered figure among them.  Here's a clip of House performing "Death Letter Blues," taken from Vestopol's Legends of Country Blues Guitar DVD series.

Both House and James had to be retaught their songs upon their rediscovery, but on these tracks, it sounds like they'd never put their instruments down for a minute.

Mississippi Fred McDowell

The remainder of Delta Blues consists of Bukka White's fierce version of "Aberdeen Mississippi Blues," two tracks from McDowell ("Louise" and "If The River Was Whiskey"), and a pair of acoustic tracks from Waters.......House's "Walkin' Blues" and Waters' own "I Can't Be Satisfied."  It's sort of neat to hear Waters' acoustic guitar here....it will remind you of his Library of Congress recordings from the early 40's (Waters recorded both of these for Alan Lomax during the L of C session).


Disc 2, Country Blues, features blues artists from various locations.  The ones that stood out to me were Robert Pete Williams from Louisiana, Mance Lipscomb from Texas, and Reverend Gary Davis, who was born in the south, but spent most of his years in New York City.

Robert Pete Williams

Williams had recently been released from the penitentiary in Louisiana, where he served a sentence for murder.  Williams' music was completely unique.  There were no other blues artists, or any musicians really, who sounded quite like him.  His lyrics were largely autobiographical and sometimes brutally honest and could be an acquired taste of sorts for some music fans.  It actually took me a bit of listening to catch on, but it's compelling stuff, especially the chilling "Levee Camp Blues" (below is Williams' version on Arhoolie Records).

Mance Lipscomb

Texan Mance Lipscomb had a distinctive guitar style, using a pocket knife as a slide instead of the traditional glass or metal slide, and was more of a "songster" than a blues man....similar to Mississippi John Hurt, he was adept at different styles ranging from blues to ballads to spirituals and pop tunes.  He actually spent most of his life as a sharecropper and farmer and didn't record until he was in his mid 60's.  He became a favorite on the festival scene until a couple of years before he passed away in 1976 at the age of 81.  His three songs show his range, including a narrative of the sinking of the Titanic.

Rev. Gary Davis

The Reverend Gary Davis was one of the most influential guitarist in blues and folk music.  His fingerpicking style influenced a wide range of artists, from Bob Dylan to Taj Mahal to Ry Cooder to Jorma Kaukonen to Donovan.  He was self-taught, began to play at the age of six and was basically blind since birth.  In the beginning, as a street musician he played a mix of blues and spiritual tunes to make it harder for the police to interrupt him, but by the late 30's, he began to focus exclusively on the gospel material and became an ordained minister.

I remember reading (don't remember where) that he broke his arm as a youth and it didn't heal correctly, which may have attributed somewhat to his unique playing style.  Good as his guitar work was, his vocals were at times astounding.  One of his more amazing songs was his version of Blind Willie Johnson's  "Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)," which he performs on this disc.

The remainder of the disc includes a couple of entertaining songs from Bay Area one-man-band  Jesse Fuller ("San Francisco Bay Blues" and "I Double Double Do Love You"), a track from Tennessee blues man Sleepy John Estes ("Clean Up At Home"), and five tracks from the duo of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry.  McGhee and Terry had played a big part in bringing the blues to the folk scene in the early 50's, so they were more than comfortable by this time at Newport, and their stirring five-song set is top notch, with a rousing version of "Long Gone," "Drink Muddy Water," and "Key To The Highway."


The third and final disc, Urban Blues, features the occasional electric instrument with mostly familiar artists......Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters (with Otis Spann), The Chambers Brothers and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.  Despite the electricity involved on some of these tracks, they're pretty subdued for the most part, probably for the benefit of the mostly folk audience.....after all, many of them booed Bob Dylan when he showed up in 1965 with a Stratocaster and plugged in.

Lightnin' Hopkins at Newport

Despite packing an electric guitar onstage, Lightnin' Hopkins was usually pretty subdued anyway and his performance (three songs featured here...."The Woman I'm Leaving, She's Taken My Appetite," "Baby Please Don't Go," and "Shake That Thing".), delivered in his usual amiable manner, were probably crowd pleasers.  Seriously, I can't imagine anybody booing Lightnin' Hopkins for any reason at all.

John Lee Hooker

I saw John Lee Hooker back in the late 80's in New Orleans, and he had a boat full of party goers hanging on his every word sung and note played......just him and his guitar.  I'm pretty sure that the same thing happened at Newport.  This set includes six of his songs, accompanied on a few tracks by Spike Lee's dad, Bill, on bass.  One of their collaborations was the moody and intense "Tupelo."  Hooker also included a somber narrative about the horrible 1940 fire at the Rhythm Room in Natchez, MS, and his old favorite, "Boom Boom."

Memphis Slim at Newport

Memphis Slim gets four songs (previously unreleased before this set was issued), and Waters and Spann get a pair of tracks, also heard here for the first time.  The set starts wrapping with a gospel-flavored reading of "See See Rider," from the Chambers Brothers, whose electrifying mix of soul, psychedelic rock, blues, funk, and gospel was very popular at the time, culminating in their massive hit, "Time Has Come Today."  The Butterfield Blues Band closes with strong readings of "Blues With A Feeling" and "Born In Chicago."

How's this for a line-up.....Butterfield - harmonica, Mike Bloomfield - guitar, Elvin Bishop - guitar, Jerome Howard - bass, Sam Lay - drums, Al Kooper - keyboards, Barry Goldberg - keyboards)?  Sounds pretty impressive, considering what several of these musicians went on to achieve, but some in the crowd, which took a more "purist" approach to the blues were aggravated by the "integrated" nature of the blues band, and according to the liner notes, Butterfield's manager Albert Goldman got in a fight backstage with musicologist Alan Lomax, who was belittling the band.

The Newport Folk Festival continues to this day at the end of July every year.  Usually the tickets sell out before the line-up is even finalized or announced.  While there doesn't seem to be as many blues artists as in years past, the music is still great and the blues world owes a huge debt to the festival for getting the word out in the late 50's/early 60's about the blues and these new and rediscovered blues artists.

For blues fans who are just getting into acoustic blues from the artists of the pre-war era, Best of the Blues 1959 - 1968 is a great and fairly inexpensive way to get started, and will probably encourage you to dig deeper into their earlier recordings.

Living Chicago Blues (Volume 1)

Recently, I revisited one of my favorite blues anthology series that first appeared in the late 70's.  Living Chicago Blues was originally released by Alligator Records as two three-volume series in 1978 and 1980.  Of course, at that time, I was not really following the blues....that was a few years away yet.  When I did start following the blues in the mid-80's, I didn't have a record player, which was the only format Alligator offered.  However, a few years later, it became available on cassette and CD (in four volumes instead of six), so I snatched them up in cassette form and, later, CD.

Over the years, there have been several great collections covering the blues from the Windy City.  The first ones I heard were the three-volume Chicago!  The Blues!  Today!, on Vanguard Records (which we discussed here), the single volume Sweet Home Chicago (on Delmark Records, also discussed here).

I realize that a lot of people don't buy records so much anymore, or CDs, or any physical product where music is concerned.  That's really a shame because they miss out on so much.  One of the pleasures of buying a physical recording, which I still do frequently, is discovering a cool song that you might have otherwise missed.  That was more applicable when I was buying rock, pop, soul, and R&B because the single isn't always the best cut.  For the blues, it's almost essential to buy the whole album, especially these older set.  I think most older blues fans would agree, and these four volumes include a lot of great tracks that you might have missed otherwise.

When Volume 1 was released in 1978, new blues releases were not nearly as frequent as in previous years.  There were still a few labels, independent ones, that were occasionally releasing new product, but most blues artists were able to record overseas, making fine albums that eventually made it over to the states.  Alligator was one of the labels that was still releasing new albums as often as they could afford to, and when they released this volume, which featured FOUR different blues bands on one album, it was eagerly received by blues fans.

Jimmy Johnson

The first volume featured four established Chicago blues stars.  Jimmy Johnson was part of a musical family (brother Syl Johnson enjoyed a lengthy career in blues and soul and brother Mack Thompson served as bassist for Magic Sam) played guitar as a hobby for many years, but eventually moved to the blues, cutting a few singles in the early 70's and backing a number of Chicago artists, including Otis Rush on his Japan tour (appearing on Rush's So Many Roads - Live in Concert release).  

Johnson was approaching his 50th birthday when he cut these four sides, backed by Larry Burton on rhythm guitar, Carl Snyder on keyboards, Ike Anderson on bass, and Dino Alvarez on drums.  They were all covers, beginning with the Duke Records classic blues ballad "Your Turn To Cry," the Percy Mayfield standard "Serves Me Right To Suffer,"  Louis Jordan's jump blues "Ain't That Just Like A Woman," and the Memphis soul burner "Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home."

Johnson's musical talents were an even mix of blues and soul.  I first heard him on his Bar Room Preacher album (also from Alligator) and his guitar work was very distinctive and was complemented by his expressive vocals, which were a solid fit in the blues and soul genres.  Rock-solid support from the band helped get Volume 1 off to a fine start.

  

Johnson eventually signed with Delmark and released two excellent albums in 1979 and 1982  (1983's Bar Room Preacher was a reissue of a French release from the late 70's).  He recorded a couple of albums in the 90's, and a collaboration with brother Syl at the turn of the century.  At age 91, he released his final album, 2019's Every Day of Your Life on Delmark.  During the pandemic, he appeared regularly on Facebook, playing the blues from home and corresponding with his fans, before suffering a stroke and passing away in late January, 2022.

Eddie Shaw and Hubert Sumlin

Next on the roster was Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang.  Shaw inherited the Wolf Gang after his longtime boss, Howlin' Wolf passed away in 1976, but he'd been playing the saxophone since he was a teenager in Mississippi, playing with Ike Turner and landing with Muddy Waters' band in Chicago before switching to the Wolf's band, eventually serving as his bandleader.  He also played with Magic Sam (on Black Magic and the Delmark anthology Sweet Home Chicago), Otis Rush, and others.

Shaw and the Wolf Gang (Hubert Sumlin - guitar, Johnny "Big Moose" Walker - piano, Lafayette "Shorty" Gilbert - bass, Chico Chism - drums) rip through a five-song set.  Only Walker was not a member of the Wolf Gang while the Wolf was the leader, this session was his first with the band.  Four of the five songs were covers, Hound Dog Taylor's "It's Alright," Magic Sam's "Out of Bad Luck," Chick Willis' bawdy "Stoop Down Baby," and the Mississippi Sheiks' "Sittin' On Top of The World."  Shaw's own "My Baby's So Ugly" wraps up their exciting set.  Shaw's energetic sax is complemented perfectly by Sumlin's unique guitar work and it all reminds you in a way of their tenure with the Wolf.

 

It was rare for a Chicago blues band to be fronted by a sax player, but Shaw did just that for five decades, eventually bringing in his guitar-playing son, Vaan Shaw (his other son, Stan Shaw, is an actor of some renown), and making numerous raucous rocking recordings for Rooster Blues, Delmark, and Wolf Records before passing away in 2018. 

Left Hand Frank

I was not familiar with Left Hand Frank Craig prior to hearing him on this set.  He was a native of Mississippi (born in Greenville in 1936), but moved to Chicago as a teenager.  Like many left-handers, he played his guitar strung for a righty, but strapped it on upside down.  He got his first guitar at four and learned to play blues and country music from older musicians who sought out his mother to buy homemade whiskey

Craig played with several teenagers (guitarist Eddie King and bassist Willie Black) outside The Zanzibar and Vi's Club for tips when he was too young to play inside, but eventually graduated to backing many of the city's foremost blues artists, such as Willie Cobbs, Jimmy Rogers, Lee Jackson, Jimmy Dawkins, Boyd Gilmore, Junior Wells, Carey Bell, Good Rockin' Charles, Hound Dog Taylor, and James Scott, Jr.

Craig worked as a manual laborer at a steel mill during the daylight hours, and played the blues at night.  He was able to record in 1960, playing bass behind Eddie King, and later behind Morris Pejoe, Little Eddie Newell, and Willie Williams.  In the 70's, he was still playing around Chicago when he appeared on this album, his first tunes as a front man, backed by Dimestore Fred and Pocketwatch Paul (his frequent collaborators around this time) on harmonica and rhythm guitar respectively, Bob Stroger on bass, and Odie Payne, Jr. on drums.

Craig penned two of his four songs - "Come Home, Darling" and "Blues Won't Let Me Be."  He also covered Mercy Dee Watson's "One Room Country Shack" and the Ray Sharpe classic "Linda Lu."  Craig's gritty, tough guitar playing was reminiscent of fellow former Mississippians/current (at the time) Chicagoans Magic Slim and Jimmy Rogers and he was also a strong vocalist as well.

Craig recorded a couple of additional albums after this set, a great live album recorded at the Knickerbocker Cafe in Westerly, RI in the late 70's and released on a French label (MCM), and a collaboration with Jimmy Rogers that appeared on JSP Records in England.  He moved to Los Angeles in the early 80's to live with his sister and fell into bad health, eventually passing away in 1992.  Both of his releases are worth seeking out.

Lurrie and Carey Bell

The final act on Volume 1 is Carey Bell's Blues Harp Band.  Bell was part of the second generation of Chicago harp masters, learning his craft from Little Walter, Big Walter, and Sonny Boy Williamson II by listening to their records as a youth in Meridian, MS (he was born Carey Bell Harrington in Macon, MS) and later directly from them when he moved up north.  The cool thing about Bell was he took the distinctive sounds of each of those harp wizards and created his own unique sound from them.  

While in Meridian, he played in his godfather Lovie Lee's band and eventually traveled with Lee to Chicago.  He then learned from the harp masters in person and also learned to play bass from Hound Dog Taylor to enable him to get more work as a musician.  This worked out well for him as the harmonica was being de-emphasized in favor of the electric guitar, so he played bass for several bands, including Eddie Taylor and Royal Johnson, until the harmonica returned to the forefront in the late 60's.

He recorded with Earl Hooker in 1968 and  an album for Delmark in 1969 and played with Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon's bands in the early 70's, also recording a collaborative album with Big Walter Horton for Alligator in 1972 (the label's second release), and another effort for Bluesway Records.  His band on this four-song set included his 19-year-old son Lurrie Bell on guitar (more on him in a later volume), Bob Riedy on piano, Aron Burton on bass, and Odie Payne, Jr. on drums.

Bell's set list included a Willie Dixon song previously recorded by Little Walter ("Too Late"), "Laudromat Blues," a hit for Albert King written by Sandy Jones, Jr., and his own contributions "One Day" and "Woman In Trouble."  Bell was a robust vocalist, but his playing on the harmonica was breathtaking at time in their energy and depth, and the band's support is first rate, as well.

Bell continued to record for JSP, Blind Pig, Rooster Blues (with his son, Lurrie) and made multiple recordings for Alligator, including a pair of solo albums, an album where he teamed up with three other Chicago harp legends (Junior Wells, James Cotton, and Billy Branch), and an acoustic release with Lurrie, who has become one of the Windy City's finest guitarists.  He passed away in 2007, releasing a live set on Delmark that same year.

The first volume of Living Chicago Blues was a good one, giving several artists an opportunity for more exposure that worked out well for them.  The subsequent releases in the series would prove to bring other great, under-recorded artists to the forefront, giving rise to a real resurgence in "Genuine Houserockin' Music" of the Chicago variety.  We'll be looking at additional volumes in the near future. 

Five Albums You Might Have Missed (V.10)

This week, Friday Blues Fix features five more outstanding recordings that you might have missed the first time around, either because they were released before you became a fan, you may not have known about them upon first release, they are no longer in print, or they got lost in the shuffle among a boatload of other great CDs that came out around the same time.  Hey, it happens to me all the time.  That's why we do our best to keep everybody in the loop here at FBF......to make sure that you don't miss out on some wonderful music.  Let's get started.

Various Artists - Homeward Bound:  A Loving Tribute to John-Alex Mason:  I was a latecomer to Mason's music, picking up with his great 2008 release, Town and Country, then his masterpiece, Jook Joint Thunderclap, but I loved what I got to hear.  Unfortunately, he passed away not long after the release of the latter album, from complications after cancer surgery.  The loss was devastating to his family (one of his children was born a few weeks after his death), his fans, and the blues community in general.  A group of his fellow musicians joined forces to record a tribute disc in 2012.  This set of blues and roots musicians included album producer Elam McKnight, Cedric Burnside, Big George Brock, Jeff Norwood, Bob Bogdal, Sam Simon, Davis Coen, Fiona Boyes, Valerie June, Microwave Dave, and others.  Each brought an original tune to the disc, touching on the blues, blues-rock, roots, and country blues.  It's somber at times, haunting at times, but what comes through more than anything is the love and respect that each of these artists had from Mason.  Obviously, he touched a lot of lives during his short time on Planet Earth.  Though the music is great, as an added incentive, money from the sales of this disc go toward a special fund that has been set up for his kids, which is a worthy cause if there ever was one.  This disc can be purchased at the albums indiegogo site.

Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' And The Blues: The Herald Sessions (Buddha):  Everybody who considers themselves a blues fan needs at least one Lightnin' Hopkins recording in their collection.  From the mid-40's until just before his death in 1982, Hopkins reportedly recorded more albums than any other bluesman, and just about all of them are worth hearing.  The best thing about being a newcomer to his music is that you can really pick up just about any recording he did and not be disappointed.  When Hopkins recorded this material in Houston for Herald Records in 1954, he was in a transition period.  Most of his black fans had moved from his easy-going country blues style to the more modern, urban blues and R&B of the era.  This is some of Hopkins' most rowdy and raucous material, he plays some of his best electric guitar, and there's also a rhythm section in support.  Within a few years, Hopkins had been "rediscovered," even though he'd never left Houston, and was soon traveling the folk-blues circuit and recording even more albums for various labels, but this set stands as one of his best.  It's available in several different formats from several different labels (I had the set from Collectibles back in the early 90's), but this Buddha set has the best sound and four previously unissued tracks.

Deacon John Moore - Deacon John's Jump Blues (Image Entertainment):  For many years, Deacon John has made Crescent City music lovers very happy.  He's played everywhere from proms to birthday parties to fraternity formals to debutante cotillions to festivals to carnival balls to charity events to wedding receptions.  He's played blues, blues-rock, R&B, and rock & roll.  In 2003, he released this ambitious set that pays tribute to the New Orleans R&B and musicians that inspired so many hits of the 40's, 50's, and 60's.  The Deacon breathes new life into a boatload of familiar tunes with assistance from many local legends, such as piano wizards Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, and Henry Butler, singer Teedy Boutte, the gospel group The Zion Harmonizers, and a crack band led by Wardell Quezergue and powered by the saxophone of Amadee Castenell.  It's an incredibly inspired set that could have only been better if it had been longer (only 40 minutes), but there's also a great DVD capturing a live performance of these tunes.  If you're not a fan of New Orleans R&B before you hear this, you will be afterward.

Various Artists - Broadcasting the Blues! (Southwest Musical Arts):  Now this is a collection that no blues fan should be without!!  For nearly 30 years, harmonica ace Bob Corritore's radio program, Those Lowdown Blues, on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix, has hosted some of the biggest names in the blues, and has featured live performances from most of them.  In 2009, this CD celebrated the show's 25 years of keeping the blues alive by collecting some of the finest and rarest performances from an impressive array of artists (Lowell Fulson, Billy Boy Arnold, Otis Clay, Louisiana Red, Dave Riley, Henry Gray, Johnny Rawls, and Lazy Lester.....30 tracks in all.  Some highlights include Clay and Rawls teaming up for the gospel tune, "I Want To Be At the Meeting," Fulson's "Sinner's Prayer," Gray reprising his classic "Cold Chills," and a dandy pair of tunes from Lazy Lester.  Corritore is still going strong today on the radio, with his club, The Rhythm Room, and his regular performances and recordings.  You can catch Those Lowdown Blues on Sunday nights by going to the station's website and tuning in.

Sven Zetterberg - Blues From Within (Amigo):  One of the great things about writing reviews for Blues Bytes since 1999 is that I've been able to hear some great music that I might not have ordinarily heard, especially blues from artists in other countries.  As far as the blues in Sweden go, they don't come much bigger than Sven Zetterberg, who's been playing the blues since he was 12, when he learned harmonica in the style of Little Walter.  By the time he was 20, he had formed his first blues bands, Telge Blues, and in the 90's he founded the Chicago Express, which was Sweden's top blues band throughout the 90's.  In 1999, he released Blues From Within, his debut as a solo artist, and it's a most impressive effort, with Zetterberg playing Chicago-styled blues, Texas shuffles, and smooth urban soul.  A skilled guitarist, harmonica player, and songwriter, he's also a incredibly soulful vocalist....so good that you will forget that he's actually from a few miles east of the Windy City if you're not careful. Zetterberg has been pretty prolific over the years, with some really great blues and soul recordings that show his mastery of both genres.