Five Discs You Might Have Missed (Volume 18)

Here's another long-running FBF topic that we haven't visited in a while.  Most of these releases came out during a time when I really didn't have the budget to buy everything I wanted to buy, or they might have slipped through the cracks for me the first time around.  I still love to be able to plug a new disc into a CD player and one of my vehicles has a CD player in it, plus I also have a portable player that I can connect in my new (to me) car.  That said, here are a few "new" finds that I've been playing quite a bit that are well worth your listening time and pleasure if you missed them.  

Some of these may not be available for streaming (darn), but can be found at Amazon or Discogs pretty easily.

I have been a fan of the Tail Gators since the late 80's.  If you're not familiar with one of the coolest bands of the 80's and 90's, I plan to correct that issue in a future post, but before we had the Tail Gators, there were The LeRoi Brothers, who have been around in various incarnations since 1981.  They were founded by Mike Buck (original drummer for The Fabulous Thunderbirds), guitarist/singer Steve Doerr, bassists Alex Napier and, later, former T-Birds bassist Keith Ferguson, and Don Leady, who left the band with Ferguson in the mid 80's to start The Tail Gators.  

Several years ago, I found a copy of The LeRoi Brothers' debut full-length album, Check This Action, on Rounder Records, which was a great enough listen, but a few years back, Jungle Records re-released Check This Action as a "Deluxe Reissue," which includes the 4 tracks from their intial release, the EP Moon Twist, plus two other tracks, one previously heard on the Rounder releases and one previously unheard.  These releases are still pretty impressive for their raw, rocking energy and power.  Both the Rounder release and the Jungle release are worth having, but I give the nod to the Jungle edition because there's definitely more bang for your buck.

The LeRoi Brothers continued to release albums sporadically over the next few years, but they really earned their reputation as a live band, one of Austin''s finest.  Doerr and Buck have remained through most of the band's lifetime, but other "LeRoi's" over the years have included Jackie Newhouse, Sarah Brown, Evan Johns, Rick "Caspar" Rawls, "Speedy" Sparks, Joe Doerr (Steve's brother), and Eva Monsees. The band was eventually inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame.  If you love raucous blues, soul, zydeco, rockabilly, soul, and R&B, this disc fill fill the bill.

One of my favorite harp players was Carey Bell.  Born Carey Bell Harrington in Macon, MS, he learned to play harmonica at a young age and traveled with his godfather, piano man Lovie Lee, to Chicago in his late teens.  He learned to play bass to offset the decrease of harmonica players used in band during the late 50's, playing with Earl Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Taylor, Louisiana Red, Jimme Dawkins, and others.  His harmonica influences were Little Walter, Big Walter (his mentor), DeFord Bailey, and the two Sonny Boy Williamsons.

Bell embarked on a solo career in 1969, but continued to play with Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All-Stars.  All of his solo recordings, at least the ones I've heard, are great, but I think Deep Down, released in 1995 by Alligator Records, might be his very best.  It's got some of his best original songs with some lesser-known covers songs that are well chosen.  I think his backing band (Bell's son Lurrie and Carl Weathersby on guitar, Lucky Peterson on keys, Johnny B. Gayden on bass, and Ray "Killer" Allison on drums) is possibly one of the finest ensembles gathered during that time.

Bell recorded a few more albums after this one, including a couple with Lurrie and even a Superharps effort with Raful Neal, Lazy Lester, and Snooky Pryor.  He passed away at 70 in 2007 from heart failure, around the time Delmark Records released a live CD/DVD set by Bell with Lurrie.  You can't go wrong with any of Carey Bell's releases, but Deep Down definitely checks all the boxes for blues fans.

You may not know who Cornell Dupree is, but chances are better than average that you've heard an album or song that the legendary guitarist has played on.  He played on over 2,500 recording sessions, mostly R&B and blues, but he also played jazz.....fusion or soul-jazz.  At 20, he was playing in King Curtis' band and later played on Brook Benton's "Rainy Night In Georgia."  He also played on recordings by Lou Rawls, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, Bill Withers, Lena Horne, Roberta Flack, Joe Cocker, and so many others.  He toured with Aretha Franklin and was part of the outstanding studio-band supergroup Stuff during the 70's, who recorded several albums during that time and appeared on SNL.

Dupree also released several albums over a nearly-forty year period.  One of his best was released in 1991 on the Austin, TX label Amazing Records.  Can't Get Through was mostly instrumental, with 9 tracks that touch on blues, soul, jazz, and funk.  There is one vocal track from Windell Capel, who has a lot of Al Green in his vocal style and certainly should have had more opportunities to record (I only found a self-released cassette from him listed on Discogs).

However, you don't buy a Cornell Dupree album for the vocals.  He is a fantastic, endlessly inventive guitarist and he recorded this set with his working band at the time.  This is one of those albums that I searched for a long time before finally tracking it down this summer (along with one of his later release, the more jazz-oriented Bop 'n' Blues from 1994).  Dupree stayed pretty active until shortly before he passed away from emphysema in 2011.  Can't Get Through is a great set that any blues guitar fan would want to own.

Another album that I spent a long time trying to track down was Rediscovered (Private Music) from the legendary soul singer Howard Tate.  Tate charted three times in the late 60's with "Ain't Nobody Home" (covered by B.B. King), "Stop" (covered by Jimi Hendrix) and "Look at Granny Run Run" (covered in the late 70's by Ry Cooder), but many rock fans will remember one of his songs made famous by Janis Joplin, "Get It While You Can."  Tate's own recordings didn't gain him a lot of commercial success and he dropped off the scene in the early 80's.  He battled and beat a drug habit, was reportedly homeless for a spell, and eventually became a drug counselor and later a preacher.

In the early 2000's, he was persuaded to give music another try and he was able to reconnect with his longtime producer Jerry Ragavoy, who also wrote most of his material in the 60's.  He wrote or co-wrote 11 of 12 tracks on Rediscovered and played piano.  Tate sounds just like he did on those earlier recordings, down to those falsetto fills and he has a warm, understated delivery that made the best soul records back in the day.  

The album's only cover tune is Prince's "Kiss," which works quite well, and Tate revisits the Joplin tune to close out the album.  Rediscovered led to a nice comeback for Tate, who recorded three more well-received albums before passing away at 72 in December of 2011.  If you've never heard Howard Tate, you're in for a nice surprise with Rediscovered.

Several years ago, FBF did a post about a three-volume set of recordings from 1967 by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, featuring three future members of Fleetwood Mac - guitarist Peter Green, bassist John McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood.  Unfortunately, that crew never made a studio recording during their short time together, but 2/3 of the group (Green and McVie) did join Mayall (plus drummer Aynsley Dunbar) for the 1967 studio album, A Hard Road (London/Polygram Records), a session recorded in late 1966 before Fleetwood briefly replaced Dunbar.  

The supporting cast of the Bluesbreakers was pretty much been a revolving door from the band's inception.  Green had replaced Eric Clapton as guitarist for a brief tenure after Clapton disappeared for a bit, but when Clapton left the band for real in 1966, he became a full-time member.  The band recorded a 45 before A Hard Road, but this album represents Green's only studio effort with the band.  Back in the late 80's, I was a fan of Clapton and Jeff Beck and one of my friends told me that I really needed to listen to Peter Green, but I had no idea where to listen to him at the time.  If I had heard this album back then, I definitely would have tried to find more of his music, including his early Fleetwood Mac.

As it is, A Hard Road mostly consists of original tunes from Mayall with a couple of tracks written, one sung, by Green which includes a haunting instrumental, "The Super-Natural," that was definitely a precursor to his later tunes like "Black Magic Woman" and "Albatross."  Mayall is great as always, playing piano, harmonica and five and nine-string guitar on selected tracks, while McVie and Dunbar are rock-solid in support.  There's a three-piece horn section on several tracks as well.  There are some fine covers of songs from Willie Cobbs, Elmore James, and Freddie King as well.  Following Bluesbreakers tradition, this band only stayed together until the middle of 1967, releasing one other 45 after the album.  There have been several reissues of this album, one including the two 45's, and one that included several taken from radio sessions.