In Case You Missed Them.....Like I Did

Every once in a while, I will find a few great releases for bargain prices that I missed the first time around.  At the time most of these were released, I was caught in everyday life events or a little shy of money (It would be physically, and financially, impossible for me to pick up every release I want to hear anytime I venture into a record store, physical or virtual) and I forgot about them, only to be reminded of them in recent weeks.  Here's a few that I recently tracked down......in case you, like me, missed them.

Professor Longhair - Mardi Gras In New Orleans:  1949-1957 (Nighthawk Records):  Actually, I owned this on cassette many moons ago.....it's probably still around, in fact.....but I had never found it on CD.  It's been reissued a couple of times over the years since I grabbed my copy in the late 80's.  During the 50's, Fess recorded for a host of different labels and this set collects his recordings for Star Talent Records, Mercury Records, Ebb Records, Federal Records, Wasco Records, and one from Atlantic (who collected their 50's recordings of Fess on New Orleans Piano.....grab it if you can find it).  Professor Longhair's repertoire was not very vast, by any means, and he recorded several of these tracks more than once, but I've never met anyone who said they had enough Professor Longhair in their collection.  If you can find this one, on whatever label it's issued on, I highly recommend it.  Fess's 50's recordings, all of them, are a blast to hear.

Bobby Radcliff - Live at the Rynborn (Black Top Records):  I met the incredible Bobby Radcliff on Facebook a few years ago, via Ilana Katz Katz while I was interviewing her for FBF.  He's a really nice, friendly guy and I would love to interview him someday.  I first heard him on his first two Black Top releases (Dresses Too Short and Universal Blues) in the early 90's and his guitar playing was just amazing.  Those are still two of my favorites, but I was never able to track down his second two releases for the label before they closed up shop.  I had heard good things about both of them and I was finally able to track down his live release a few weeks ago.  I didn't think I could be blown away by his guitar work any more than I was with Dresses Too Short the first time I heard it, but I was wrong.  This set was recorded in late 1996 at the Rynborn Theatre in Antrim, New Hampshire, and Radcliff plays the whole set like his hair is on fire and he makes most of these songs (nearly all covers) his own with his unique and dynamic guitar work.  It's just a jaw-dropping experience from start to finish.  Believe me when I say that if you like blues guitar, especially the old school Chicago West Side variety, you need to treat yourself to Bobby Radcliff.  You can thank me later.

Johnny Winter - White Hot Blues (Columbia/Legacy Records):  I wrote about Johnny Winter after he passed away in 2014, focusing on his mid-80's recordings for Alligator Records.  As I wrote at the time, I was not familiar with his pre-Alligator recordings when I started listening, and truthfully, I had not really backtracked to hear them, planning to do it one day down the road.  Well, a few weeks ago, "one day down the road" took place, and I found this set that collects 16 of his most blues-related tracks from his tenure with Columbia (1969 - 1980).  I had seen this set when it was first made available in the late 90's, but never picked it up.  These tracks are really good....not quite as raw to these ears as those Alligator recordings, but it's pretty close.  He was always a flashy guitarist, but these tracks are strongly grounded in the blues.  Of course, the line between Johnny Winter's vision of blues and rock n' roll has always been a very thin one.  These are the best pure blues tracks he laid down prior to his Alligator run.  I know most everyone who was a fan came to Johnny Winter from the opposite direction that I did, but really there's not a bad way to discover him.

In Case You Missed It.......The Hook and the Prince of Darkness

A couple of years ago, one Sunday afternoon, I stumbled across a movie called The Hot Spot.  Since I caught it at the beginning, I started watching it, but after a while it became one of those train wreck movies where you just couldn't take your eyes off it despite your best intentions.  Yep, it was two hours I won't ever get back, a really bad movie that was trying its best to imitate those 50's film noir movies...just a bad experience, or at least it was until the credits started rolling.

The end credits were backed by this funky boogie blues rhythm with a muted trumpet playing over it.  For the first time during the entire movie, I was riveted to the screen......who was playing this wonderful music??  It sounded like Miles Davis on the trumpet.....I'm a huge Miles Davis fan, but I couldn't imagine him playing on the soundtrack of this movie.  I decided to search to find out just who was behind this great music.

Lo and behold, it was indeed Miles Davis, the Prince of Darkness, playing on this track.  Not only that, he was being backed by John Lee Hooker on this particular track and the great drummer Earl Palmer, along with slide guitarist extraordinaire Roy Rogers and another legend, Taj Mahal.  Through further research, I discovered that Miles played on most of the soundtrack and was backed on other tunes by slide guitarist Roy Rogers and Taj Mahal.  The soundtrack was also available on the Antilles label (a subsidiary of Island Records), though it was out of print.  I tracked down a copy of the soundtrack (which actually cost more than the DVD, which was apparently also out of print....can't argue with that).

I've been a fan of Miles Davis since my early twenties (I posted here about his first quintet many years ago).  Like many jazz musicians of his day, the blues permeated every note of his music, especially in his early career.  In his later years, and this music was some of the last that he recorded, he made a return to more blues influence in his music after his torrid fusion period from the late 60's to the mid 70's.  

Despite being aware of the blues influence in his music, it never occurred to me that Davis would play with any other blues artists, let alone John Lee Hooker, but based on the quote above, Davis respected Hooker's music immensely, and the tracks on which these two collaborate really cook.  No one, I mean NO ONE, worked a groove like the great JLH and Davis' trumpet over this nasty, greasy, Delta groove is just wondrous.  Of course, with a rhythm section like Palmer and bassist Tim Drummond, two of the finest to play their respective instruments, there's no way to go astray. 

 

Rogers and Taj Mahal's contributions are equally fine, but just in case you missed it, this was Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker......two of the giants in their respective musical fields......coming together and making it count, even if it is on the soundtrack of a most forgettable movie.  The soundtrack to The Hot Spot is certainly not forgettable in the least and if you like blues or jazz, track down this CD.  You can skip the movie though.

Watch Your Step - The Music of Bobby Parker

The first time I ever heard of Bobby Parker was when I bought Carlos Santana's Havana Moon album in the early 80's.  That whole album was an eye-, and ear-opening experience for me, as it introduced me to a lot of new sounds and musicians that I'd never really heard before......Booker T. Jones and the Fabulous Thunderbirds would both later become favorites.  There was lots of old school rock n' roll and Tex-Mex included......just a great album that you should check out if you're a fan of Santana or any of the other artists (even Willie Nelson made an appearance).

Although Bobby Parker wasn't on the album, one of his songs was....."Watch Your Step" opened the disc in a big way and quickly became my favorite song on the album.  I did find out that it was a cover of a early 60's hit by Bobby Parker.  Of course, back then it wasn't like old songs appeared on the radio, other than on Sunday nights, when I could pick up WLAC out of Nashville.  They played songs from the late 50's/early 60's frequently and that's where I first heard the original version of "Watch Your Step," which blew me away all over again.

It was next to impossible for me to find recordings of older artists like Parker where I lived.  I listened to what I could find, thanks to a few mail-order places that I was able to track down via the ads in Living Blues magazine, but I was never able to track down any music from Bobby Parker.  I think it was mainly due to the fact that Parker just recorded singles and for multiple labels, so it was hard to collect them all together into a "Best Of" due to licensing issues and such.

Fortunately, my favorite record label at the time, Black Top Records, released Bent Out Of Shape, Parker's first official album, in 1993.  I heard about it via Mississippi's Public Radio Saturday night show, Highway 61.  They played a track off the album (the title track, I think) as part of their set and two days later, I was driving to the record store, where I quickly grabbed a copy.

Bent Out Of Shape was everything I expected it to be.  Parker was the total package....a great guitarist, singer, and songwriter (though I'd never seen him perform, I knew that had to be part of the package as well).  I played that album over and over for a long time, and when Black Top released a follow-up in 1995, Shine Me Up, I played it almost as much.  Both albums are permanent fixtures on my iPod playlist, along with many of Black Top's other albums.

Upon hearing Bent Out Of Shape, my biggest question was why Bobby Parker didn't become a big star then and why wasn't he regarded as one of big stars of his era??  I found out over the years that he was a huge influence on a host of acts, particularly Santana, John Lennon, Spencer Davis, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Bobby Radcliff, who described Parker as "Guitar Slim meets James Brown," which sums him up about as well as I've ever heard.

Parker was born in Lafayette, LA in 1937, but his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a kid.  Bitten by the show biz bug at an early age, he was influenced by a number of big stage acts that he saw locally......Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Mr. B., Billy Eckstine, which made him a fan of jazz early on.  However, when he saw some of the West Coast blues gutiarists.....T-Bone Walker, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Pee Wee Crayton, and Lowell Fulson, he became a man of the blues.

He won a talent contest in the late 50's, which led to a gig with Otis Williams & the Charms, later backing Bo Diddley (even appearing on Ed Sullivan), and Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams before he settled down in Washington D.C., where he became a solo act, recording "Watch Your Step" in 1961 for V-Tone Records.  Some of his other singles included "Blues Get Off My Shoulder" (Parker claimed that he wrote the B-side, "You Got What It Takes," but it was stolen by Berry Gordy) and "It's Hard By It's Fair," both of which he reprised on Bent Out Of Shape many years later.

Parker remained active over the years, but spent most of his time performing in the D.C. area.  Upon the release of his two Black Top efforts, Santana took Parker on the road with him for several shows, one of which was captured for DVD in the late 90's.  

Parker remained active until he passed away in October of 2013 from a heart attack at 76.  If you missed out on Bobby Parker, you missed a real treat.  Luckily, his music is still available via streaming or CD, and there's an upcoming release that collects his 50's and 60's recordings that is on my radar for sure.

More Big Doings at The Little Big Store

So I had a doctor visit this past Friday for a routine checkup (all was well).  While I was out and in the neighborhood......give or take about twenty-five miles.....I decided to stop by The Little Big Store, where I found those great deals during the summer.  I had been planning to return for a couple of weekends, but things didn't work out, so I decided to make it work out while I had a chance.

I was really glad that I did, because they had some "new" old albums to choose from this time around.  I had a couple that I was intending to purchase if they were still there when I returned, and I did, but there were some other great selections that I picked up while I was there.  Let's check out a couple of them, why don't we......

Johnny Shines' music has always intrigued me.  I first saw him in the mid-80's on a public TV documentary about the Delta Blues Festival.  This was early on into my journey through the blues and I was just fascinated by his style.......that slide guitar and his powerful vocals just grabbed your attention.  Later on, when I read Peter Guralnick's Feel Like Going Home, I learned much more about him.....how he traveled and played with Robert Johnson and probably knew as much about him as any musician of that time.

In the 40's and 50's, he played electric blues in Chicago, recording for Chess and J.O.B. among others, but returned to his roots in the 60's and 70's, playing in solo acoustic format on many of his albums.  I've picked up several Johnny Shines albums at The Little Big Store over the past few months and I left Traditional Delta Blues, hoping it would be there for my next visit.  Thank goodness it was still there.

These 14 sides were recorded in the early 70's, but I'm not sure if they were ever released until the early 90's by Biograph Records, the liner notes don't really say.  I don't understand why such great music sits on the shelf for so long, but I guess that's the music business.  Anyway, Shines covers several of Robert Johnson's songs ("Milk Cow Blues," "Dynaflow Blues," and "Tell Me Mama," which Shines learned from Johnson, who never recorded it).  He also covers Charley Patton's "Pony Blues," "Sitting On Top Of The World" (from the Mississippi Sheiks), and Memphis Minnie's "Bumble Bee," allegedly the first song Shines ever learned to play.  It's a great set of Delta blues and one of Shines' many excellent recordings.

One of the new finds was an album that I had been long been in search of.  I first heard Skip James via his Vanguard recordings in the mid-60's, but the sides recorded on Greatest of the Delta Blues Singers (also on Biograph Records), done just a couple of months after James' incredible appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival, preceded his first Vanguard album by about a year.  

James re-recorded six of his classic 1931 sides for this session and introduced six new songs, several of which described his ongoing battle with cancer (which eventually claimed his life in 1968).  Those sides are especially powerful and somber.......James' brand of blues were really blues at times....not exactly dance tunes or singalongs, which might have explained why his Paramount recordings of the 30's didn't sell that well. 

Still, while his guitar playing had declined a bit over the 30 year span, his vocals were even more powerful and expressive than they had been.  Listening to him is guaranteed to induce chill bumps, especially late at night.  While I love the Vanguard recordings for their amazing clarity and James' performances, I would put these recordings on the same level as those.  If you can't find this version, Biograph actually re-released it in the early 2000's as Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, with the songs in different playing order (that track is just killer on the Biograph or Vanguard albums...check it out below).  Either version is worth a listen and a great introduction to Skip James' music.

These trips to The Little Big Store have really stirred my interest in acoustic blues and I will be talking about even more of my finds in the future, so stay tuned.