Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue #24

 

It's time once again for another edition of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue.  This makes our 24nd edition.  For a long time, this was one of our favorite themes and it dates back to FBF's early days as a weekly email sent to co-workers.  It serves as a great way to introduce new and old tunes to new and old blues fans.  

For those unfamiliar with the format, we offer a song from the early days of the blues (Something Old), a song from a recent blues artist (Something New), a blues artist covering a rock song or vice versa (Something Borrowed), and finally, someone who epitomizes the blues.....usually a legendary artist (Something Blue).  Here we go......

For Something Old, let's go way back to 1930 for "Everybody Oughta Make A Change," by Sleepy John Estes.  I first heard this tune recorded by Eric Clapton on his Money & Cigarettes album in the early 80's.  Born in Tennessee in 1899, he and his family moved to Brownsville when he was a teen.  He lost his right eye soon after when a friend hit him with a rock.  He started performing at 19 at parties and picnics while working in the fields during the day.  He was usually accompanied by harmonica player Hammie Nixon and James "Yank" Rachell, who played guitar and mandolin.  He played with both of these musicians for over 50 years.

His recording career, at least his first one began in 1929 and recorded tracks like "Drop Down Mama," "Milk Cow Blues" (a.k.a "Leaving Trunk"), and "Someday Baby Blues."  He recorded for Decca Records and Bluebird Records, and later returned to record in the early 50's for Sun Records unsuccessfully.  He was rediscovered by Bob Koester and Sam Charters in 1962, completely blind by then and destitute.  He appeared in Charters' move The Blues and later recorded for Koester's Delmark Records.

Although he was in his late 20's/early 30's when he recorded his first sides, he sounded like an older man when he sang.  A lot of the blues revivalists searching for artists in the early 60's sort of wrote him off because they figured he was dead, but he was very much alive and his later recordings were as powerful as his early recordings.  I guess he grew into his voice.  He passed away in 1977 from a stroke, but he was a big influence on artists like Robert Plant, Bob Dylan, and Taj Mahal.  His early recordings and later recordings are uniformly fine, so if you're not familiar with him, check him out.

For Something New, how about a track from one of the young lions of the blues scene, 27 year old D.K. Harrell from Ruston, Louisiana.  An amazing guitarist and singer, Harrell sang along to B.B. King when he first heard him at age two.  He sang in his church as a boy, but continued to follow the blues.  After he got his first guitar at age 12, he was writing songs by 16.  He was inspired by King and you can hear a lot of him in his music, the tone of his guitar and his vocals.  His first paying gig was at the B.B. King Symposium at Indianola, MS, where he got to play "The Thrill Is Gone," backed by King's band.

Harrell also is influenced by Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Water and other and he has used a little bit of their style forging a distinctive style of his own.  He release the excellent album The Right Man on Little Village Records in 2023 and it won acclaim from blues fans all over.  Last year, he signed with Alligator and released Talkin' Heavy, which improved on his first release and made many Top Ten lists last year (including FBF's).  Blues fans should love D.K. Harrell's music, which is a mix of traditional and contemporary blues.  Here's "Grown Now," a single from Talkin' Heavy.

For Something Borrowed, let's stay close to the present time with a track from the B.B. King's Blues Summit 100 collection compiled by Joe Bonamassa.  If you haven't heard this set and you're a blues fan, you are missing out.  This is one of the best tribute albums I've heard because it honors its subject, is fairly reverential, and it seems like the participants are having a blast with the opportunity to acknowledge one of the true legends of the blues.

Our selected track is performed by jazz guitar legend George Benson, who actually doesn't play guitar on the track (Bonamassa and Josh Smith do a wonderful job in that capacity), but he turns in a marvelous vocal performance.  Benson was one of my first guitar heroes and the reason that I started my long journey to listening to the blues via his excellent guitar/vocal recordings throughout the 70's.  I got into jazz before I moved to the blues and his guitar work was a huge reason why.  

Benson, at 83, is still playing in the states, but stepped back from international touring in 2024, having released an album of standards in 2024 that he originally started recorded in the late 80's, but completed it with his record label's encouragement.  Joe Bonamassa continues to be incredibly prolific with his own recordings, but even more important is his work in bringing under-recorded blues artists back, such as Larry McCray, Eric Gales, Dion, and Jimmy Hall, with new releases on his Keeping The Blues Alive Records. 

For Something Blue, here's the harmonica legend James Cotton.  Cotton was born in Tunica, MS and was mentored on the harp by Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller version) after losing his parents at a very young age.  When Williamson left Cotton to live with his wife in Milwaukee, he just gave his band to Cotton, still very young, and the band fell apart.  He started playing harmonica in Howlin' Wolf's band in the early 50's, also recording his own single for Sun Records, "Cotton Crop Blues," in 1952.

He began playing in Muddy Waters' band in the mid 50's, though Little Walter played harp on most of Waters' recordings.  By 1957, Walter and Cotton were alternating on the recording sessions.  He formed his own band in the mid 60's with Otis Spann on piano, and they performed both blues and R&B tunes, adding a horn section for some tunes.  Cotton was one of the few blues artists who really crossed over to the rock audience during this time, recording with Buddha Records and appearing at numerous festivals.

In the 80's, he recorded for Alligator Records, where this track comes from, a dynamite version of Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Ain't Doin' Too Bad."  The album this track comes from, High Compression, was a cool album that was part traditional and part contemporary.  Incidentally, Bland and Cotton found out that they were half-brothers shortly before Bland passed away.  There's a great documentary about Cotton, Bonnie Blue:  James Cotton's Life in the Blues, which can be seen on Tubi TV that you should check out if you're a fan of blues harp.  Cotton remained active, despite losing his voice due to throat cancer, until shortly before his death in 2017.  Even though he couldn't sing anymore, he could still blow the back off a harmonica.