Celebrating Magic Sam

February 14, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By:Doug Lohnes

Today we celebrate the life and music of Magic Sam, on his birthday!

Magic Sam (Samuel Maghett) was one of the most dynamic and gifted blues musicians during his short lifetime (1937-1969). Born a few miles northeast of this site, Maghett began his performing career in Grenada and lived in this house until he moved to Chicago in the early 1950s. The youthful energy and spirit of Magic Sam, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, and Freddie King modernized Chicago blues into an explosive, electrifying new style in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

Born on this day, February 14, 1937 , Magic Sam was an American Chicago blues musician. Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters andLittle Walter. After moving to Chicago at the age of 19, he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after his first record, “All Your Love” in 1957. He was known for his distinctive tremolo-guitar playing.

After moving to Chicago in 1956, his guitar playing earned bookings at blues clubs on the West Side. Sam recorded for Cobra Records from 1957 to 1959, recording singles including “All Your Love” and “Easy Baby”. They did not appear on the record charts, yet they had a profound influence, far beyond Chicago’s guitarists and singers. Together with recordings by Otis Rush and Buddy Guy (also Cobra artists), they made a manifesto for a new kind of blues. Around this time Sam also worked briefly with Homesick James Williamson. Sam gained a following before being drafted into the U.S. Army. He served six months in prison for desertion and received a dishonorable discharge.

In 1963, he gained national attention for his single “Feelin’ Good (We’re Gonna Boogie)”. After successfully touring the U.S., Britain and Germany, he was signed to Delmark Records in 1967 where he recorded West Side Soul and Black Magic. He also continued performing live and toured with blues harp player Charlie Musselwhite and Sam Lay.

Sam’s breakthrough performance was at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969, which won him many bookings in the U.S. and Europe. His life and career was cut short when he suddenly died of a heart attack in December 1969. He was 32 years old. He is buried in the Restvale Cemetery inAlsip, Illinois. In February 1970, the Butterfield Blues Band played at a benefit concert for Magic Sam, at Fillmore West in San Francisco. Also on the bill were Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite and Nick Gravenites.

His guitar style, vocals, and songwriting ability have inspired and influenced many blues musicians ever since. In The Blues Brothers, Jake Blues dedicates the band’s performance of “Sweet Home Chicago” to the “late, great Magic Sam”.

The stage name Magic Sam was devised by Sam’s bass player and childhood friend Mack Thompson at Sam’s first recording session for Cobra as an approximation of “Maghett Sam”. The name Sam was using at the time, Good Rocking Sam, was already being used by another artist.

“Magic Sam had a different guitar sound,” said his record producer, Willie Dixon. “Most of the guys were playing the straight 12-bar blues thing, but the harmonies that he carried with the chords was a different thing altogether. This tune “All Your Love”, he expressed with such an inspirational feeling with his high voice. You could always tell him, even from his introduction to the music.”

Celebrating Big John Wrencher

February 12, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Doug Lohnes

Today we celebrate the life and music of Big John Wrencher!

Big John Wrencher (February 12, 1923 – July 15, 1977), also known as One Arm John, was an American blues harmonica player and singer, well known for playing on Maxwell Street Market, Chicago in the 1960s, and who later toured Europe in the 1970s.

John Thomas Wrencher was born in Sunflower, Mississippi, United States. He became interested in music as a child, and taught himself to play harmonica at an early age, and from the early 1940s was working as an itinerant musician in Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois. By the mid-1940s he had arrived in Chicago and was playing on Maxwell Street and at house parties with Jimmy Rogers, Claude “Blue Smitty” Smith and John Henry Barbee. In the 1950s he moved to Detroit, where he worked with singer/guitarist Baby Boy Warren, and formed his own trio to work in the Detroit and Clarksdale, Mississippi areas.

In 1958 Wrencher lost his left arm as a result of a car accident outside Memphis, Tennessee. By the early 1960s he had settled in Chicago, where he became a fixture on Maxwell Street Market, in particular playing from 10am to 3pm on Sundays. In 1964 he appeared in a documentary film about Maxwell Street, titled And This Is Free; performances by Wrencher recorded in the process of making the film were eventually issued on the three CD set And This Is Maxwell Street. During the 1960s he recorded for the Testament label backing Robert Nighthawk, and as part of the Chicago String Band. In 1969 he recorded for Barrelhouse Records, backed by guitarist Little Buddy Thomas and drummer Playboy Vinson, who formed his Maxwell Street band of the time. The resulting album, Maxwell Street Alley Blues, was described as “superlative in every regard” by Cub Koda at Allmusic. Wrencher toured Europe with the Chicago Blues Festival in 1973 and with the American Blues Legends in 1974, and during the latter tour recorded an album in London for Big Bear Records, backed by guitarist Eddie Taylor and his band.

During a trip to Mississippi to visit his family in July 1977, Wrencher died suddenly of a heart attack in Wade Walton‘s barber shop in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Lead Belly Fest Rehearsal

February 4, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By : Lamont Jack Pearley

Talking Bout The Blues sat in at the rehearsal of the Lead Belly Fest Wednesday Feb 3 at SIR Studios and spoke with the Founder Paul Puccioni and enjoyed some great performances from Walter Trout, Eric Burdon and the Lead Belly fest House band!

The Event is taking place Thursday Feb 4 at Carnegie Hall!

Spectacular lineup includes Buddy Guy, Eric Burdon, Edgar Winter, Marky Ramone, Walter Trout, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Tom Chapin, Guy Davis, John Davis, Dom Flemons, Dana Fuchs, Ali Isabella, Tyehimba Jess, Laurence Jones, Nick Moss Band, Michael Ledbetter, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Sari Schorr, Josh White, Jr., Tom Paley, Ben Paley, and more!

Talking Bout The Blues (c) 2016
Race + Film + Music Production

Celebrating Jody Williams

February 3, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Doug Lohnes

Joseph Leon Williams (born February 3, 1935), better known as Jody Williams, is an American blues guitarist and singer. His singular guitar playing, marked by flamboyant string-bending, imaginative chord voicings and a distinctive tone, was influential in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s.

In 2013, Williams was inducted to the Blues Hall of Fame.

In the mid-1950s, Williams was one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Chicago, yet he was little known outside the music industry since his name rarely appeared on discs. His acclaimed comeback in 2000 led to a resurgence of interest in Williams’ early work, and his reappraisal as one of the great blues guitarists.

Born in Mobile, Alabama, United States, Williams moved to Chicago at the age of five. His first instrument was the harmonica, which he swapped for the guitar after hearing Bo Diddley play at a talent show where they were both performing. Diddley, seven years his senior, took Williams under his wing and taught him the rudiments of guitar. By 1951 Williams and Diddley were playing on the street together, with Williams providing backing to Diddley’s vocals, accompanied by Roosevelt Jackson on washtub bass. Williams cut his teeth gigging with a string of blues musicians, notably Memphis Minnie, Elmore James and Otis Spann. After touring with West Coast piano player Charles Brown, Williams established himself as a session player with Chess Records.

At Chess, Williams met Howlin’ Wolf, recently arrived in Chicago from Memphis, Tennessee, and was hired by Wolf as the first guitarist in his new Chicago-based band. A year later Hubert Sumlin moved to Chicago to join Wolf’s band, and the dual guitars of Williams and Sumlin are featured on Howlin’ Wolf’s 1954 singles, “Evil Is Going On“, and “Forty Four“, and on the 1955 releases, “Who Will Be Next” and “Come To Me Baby.” Williams also provided backing on Otis Spann’s 1954 release, “It Must Have Been The Devil”, that features lead guitar work from B. B. King, one of Williams’ early heroes and a big influence on his playing.

Williams’ solo career began in December 1955 with the upbeat saxophone-driven “Lookin’ For My Baby”, released under the name Little Papa Joe on the Blue Lake label. The label closed a few months later, leaving his slide guitar performance on “Groaning My Blues Away” unreleased. By this time, Williams was highly sought after as a session guitarist, and his virtuosity in this capacity is well illustrated by his blistering lead guitar work on Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?“, a hit for Checker Records in 1956. (Rock musician Marshall Crenshaw listed Williams’ guitar solo on “Who Do You Love” as one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.) Other notable session work from the 1950s include lead guitar parts on Billy Boy Arnold‘s “I Ain’t Got You” and “I Wish You Would”, Jimmy Rogers’ “One Kiss”, Jimmy Witherspoon’s “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” and Otis Rush’s “Three Times A Fool”.

In 1957, Williams released “You May” on Argo Records, with the inventive b-side instrumental “Lucky Lou”, the extraordinary opening riff of which Otis Rush copied on his 1958 Cobra Records side “All Your Love (I Miss Loving)“. Further evidence of Williams’ influence on Rush (they played on a number of sessions together) is Rush’s solo on Buddy Guy’s 1958 debut, “Sit And Cry (The Blues)”, copied almost exactly from Williams’ “You May

TBTBTV Episode 2 Amiri Baraka

February 1, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Lamont Jack Pearley

Episode two of Talking Bout The Blues Video series celebrating African Americans that made a significant contribution to African American Heritage and Music History!

This episode Highlights the works of Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka and his writings that became a timeline for the Black Experience and history of Black Music

RACE + FILM + MUSIC PRODUCTIONS
All rights Reserved ti Talking Bout The Blues 2016 (c)

Celebrating Eddie Taylor

January 29, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Doug Lohnes

Today we celebrate the life and music of Eddie Taylor!

Born Edward Taylor in Benoit, Mississippi, United States, January 29, 1923. As a boy Taylor taught himself to play the guitar. He spent his early years playing at venues around Leland, Mississippi, where he taught his friend Jimmy Reed to play guitar. With a guitar style deeply rooted in the Mississippi Deltatradition, in 1949 Taylor moved to Chicago, Illinois.

While Taylor never achieved the stardom of some of his compatriots in the Chicago blues scene, he nevertheless was an integral part of that era. He is especially noted as a main accompanist for Jimmy Reed, as well as working with John Lee Hooker, Big Walter Horton, Sam Lay, and others. Earwig Music Company recorded him with Kansas City Red and Big John Wrencher on the album, Original Chicago Blues. Taylor’s own records “Big Town Playboy” and “Bad Boy” on Vee Jay Records became local hits in the 1950s. Later in his “semi-retirement” Eddie returned to be the regular lead guitarist with the “Peter Dames and the Chicago River Blues Band” and later to be known as “Peter Dames and the Rhythm Flames”

Taylor’s son Eddie Taylor Jr. is a blues guitarist in Chicago, his stepson Larry Taylor is a blues drummer and vocalist, and his daughter Demetria is a blues vocalist in Chicago. Taylor’s wife Vera was the niece of bluesmen Eddie “Guitar” Burns and Jimmy Burns.

Taylor died on Christmas Day in 1985 in Chicago, at the age of 62, and was interred in an unmarked grave in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. He was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1987.

Also on the Mississippi Blues Trail!

Benoit native Eddie Taylor, an architect of the post-World War II Chicago blues genre, was renowned for his work both as a bandleader and accompanist. He was best known for shaping the distinctive sound of Jimmy Reed, a childhood friend with whom Taylor reunited in Chicago. The Benoit area was also the birthplace of James DeShay, a mainstay of the St. Louis blues scene; James “Peck” Curtis, famed for his work on “King Biscuit Time” radio; and southern soul star Nathaniel Kimble.

Taylor (January 29, 1923 – December 25, 1985) is revered as one of the most influential guitarists in Chicago blues history, known for his versatility, impeccable timing, and consummate musicianship. As a child Taylor was influenced by Delta bluesmen Charley Patton, Son House, Big Joe Williams, and Robert Johnson, but learned to play guitar from a musician named “Popcorn.” Taylor performed in local jukes around Leland and Clarksdale and taught guitar to Jimmy Reed in nearby Meltonia. In the 1940s he moved to Memphis and then to Chicago, where he helped pioneer the city’s new electric blues style.

During the 1950s and ‘60s Taylor and Reed collaborated over dozens of sessions to create many of Reed’s hits for Vee-Jay Records, including “You Don’t Have to Go,” “Baby What You Want Me to Do,” “Honest I Do,” and “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby.” Taylor also recorded “Bad Boy,” “Bigtown Playboy,” and other singles for Vee-Jay as a solo artist, followed by albums for a number of different companies. Always in demand for studio sessions and nightclub dates, Taylor recorded and performed with John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and his Broomdusters, Carey Bell, Sunnyland Slim, Homesick James, Big Walter Horton, Johnny Littlejohn, Snooky Pryor, Floyd Jones, and the Aces, among many others. He began to tour internationally in the late ‘60s and remained active in music until his death. Although never as well known to the public as many of his comrades in the blues, Taylor was rated so highly by critics, historians, and musicians that he was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1987.

Taylor’s wife was blues vocalist Vera Taylor (1943-1999), a native of Dublin, Mississippi, and the niece of bluesmen Eddie, Jimmy, and Willie Burns. She often appeared on stage with her husband. Their children, Eddie, Jr., Larry, Milton, Tim, Demetria, Brenda, and Edna, all became singers or musicians, and Vera, Eddie, Jr., and Larry Taylor also recorded CDs of their own.

Benoit has been home to several other performers of note, including Nathaniel Kimble, James “Peck” Curtis, James DeShay, and Jessie Clay. Music from Benoit was also featured in the 1956 movie Baby Doll, which was filmed at the antebellum Burrus house and other local sites. In the film, a harmonica player sings the blues classic “Baby Please Don’t Go” and a woman at a cafe sings the traditional spiritual “I Shall Not Be Moved.” The cast credits in the film acknowledged the singers and most of the other local extras simply as “Some People of Benoit, Mississippi.”

content © Mississippi Blues Commission

Celebrating Elmore James

January 27, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By:Doug Lohnes

Elmore James (guitarist, singer, songwriter; January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963)

Elmore James is known as the “King of the Slide Guitar.” He was inspired by the local performances of Robert Johnson to take up the guitar. It was, in fact, a number by Johnson (“Dust My Broom”) that became James’ signature song and laid the foundation for his recording career. First cut by James in August 1951, “Dust My Broom” contains the strongest example of his stylistic signature: a swooping, full-octave opening figure on slide guitar. His influence went beyond that one riff, however, as he’s been virtually credited with inventing blues rock by virtue of energizing primal riffs with a raw, driving intensity.

Elmore James was born on a farm in Richland, Mississippi, on January 27, 1918. By the time he was 12, he was playing a one-string, wall-mounted “guitar” that was common to the region. The music of Robert Johnson and Kokomo Arnold had drawn him to music. He eventually moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where he ran a radio repair shop and played guitar at night and on weekends. One account has him playing with a band that included drums as early as 1939. If correct, that would place him several years ahead of Muddy Waters in blending Delta Blues with electrical amplification and percussion.

James went into the Navy in 1943. After his discharge, he teamed up with Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), the harmonica player he had performed with on and off since the Thirties. They performed all over the South, but eventually split up in New Orleans. James returned to Mississippi, where he was briefly hospitalized with heart problems. On August 5, 1951, James backed Williamson on eight tracks recorded for Trumpet Records. At the end of the session, James came forward and sang “Dust My Broom.” Trumpet released the song, credited to “Elmo James,” in late 1951, and it was moving into the R&B Top 10 as 1952 arrived.

The following year, James moved to Chicago, where he was able to participate in the birth and flowering of electric blues. He ended up cutting several different versions of “Dust My Broom” under different titles. His most successful was “I Believe (My Time Ain’t Long),” which reached Number Nine in 1953. He also had several other hits that featured his impassioned singing and playing, including “Look On Yonder Wall,” “Shake Your Money Maker,” “Talk to Me Baby (I Can’t Hold On),” “It Hurts Me Too” and “The Sky Is Crying.”

Throughout the rest of the Fifties, James bounced back and forth between Chicago and Mississippi. Unfortunately, heavy drinking and chronic asthma complicated his heart trouble. He made a detour to New York City in 1959 to record for the Fire label – sessions that yielded some of his finest recorded work. In 1961, the musicians’ union blacklisted him for non-payment of dues. He returned to Mississippi and played local gigs until May 1963, when he went back to Chicago for a recording session with deejay Big Bill Hill. But on May 24, the night before the session, James died of a heart attack. He was 45 years old.

James left behind a raft of classic blues songs that include “Shake Your Money Maker,” “Talk to Me Baby,” “It Hurts Me Too” and “The Sky Is Crying.” James’ distinctive style has influenced a legion of Chicago slide players, and his songs have been cut by the admiring likes of the Allman Brothers Band, Canned Heat, Fleetwood Mac and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. “You can hear his signature riff at least once a night from every slide guitarist working,” music historian Tony Glover has written, “but no one has ever quite matched that vocal intensity, which transformed the lonesome moan of the Delta into a Chicago scream.”

– See more at: https://rockhall.com/inductees/elmore-james/bio/#sthash.AOklOkcN.dpuf

Langston Hughes Blues Literature

January 23, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Lamont Jack Pearley

African American History, The Blues, African American Literature and our culture is and has always been one in the same. And in celebrations to that, I wish to post an excerpt of a great short story by the amazing Langston Hughes called — “The Blues I’m a Playin'”

Enjoy the read–

Works by Langston Hughes

The Blues I’m Playing
by Langston Hughes

I | II | III | IV | V
Oceola Jones, pianist, studied under Philippe in Paris. Mrs. Dora Ellsworth paid her bills. The bills included a little apartment on the Left Bank and a grand piano. Twice a year Mrs. Ellsworth came over from New York and spent part of her time with Oceola in the little apartment. The rest of her time abroad she spent at Biarritz or Juan les Pins, where she would see the new canvases of Antonio Bas, young Spanish painter who also enjoyed the patronage of Mrs. Ellsworth. Bas and Oceola, the woman thought, both had genius. And whether they had genius or not, she loved them, and took good care of them.

Poor dear lady, she had no children of her own. Her husband was dead. And she had no interest in life now save art, and the young people who created art. She was very rich, and it gave her pleasure to share her richness with beauty. Except that she was sometimes confused as to where beauty lay — in the youngsters or in what they made, in the creators or the creation. Mrs. Ellsworth had been known to help charming young people who wrote terrible poems, blue-eyed young men who painted awful pictures. And she once turned down a garlic-smelling soprano-singing girl who, a few years later, had all the critics in New York at her feet. The girl was so sallow. And she really needed a bath, or at least a mouth wash, on the day when Mrs. Ellsworth went to hear her sing at an East Side settlement house. Mrs. Ellsworth had sent a small check and let it go at that — since, however, living to regret bitterly her lack of musical acumen in the face of garlic.

About Oceola, though, there had been no doubt. The Negro girl had been highly recommended to her by Ormond Hunter, the music critic, who often went to Harlem to hear the church concerts there, and had thus listened twice to Oceola’s playing.

“A most amazing tone,” he had told Mrs. Ellsworth, knowing her interest in the young and unusual. “A flare for the piano such as I have seldom encountered. All she needs is training — finish, polish, a repertoire.”

“Where is she?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth at once. “I will hear her play.”

By the hardest, Oceola was found. By the hardest, an appointment was made for her to come to East 63rd Street and play for Mrs. Ellsworth. Oceola had said she was busy every day. It seemed that she had pupils, rehearsed a church choir, and played almost nightly for colored house parties or dances. She made quite a good deal of money. She wasn’t tremendously interested, it seemed, in going way downtown to play for some elderly lady she had never heard of, even if the request did come from the white critic, Ormond Hunter, via the pastor of the church whose choir she rehearsed, and to which Mr. Hunter’s maid belonged.

It was finally arranged, however. And one afternoon, promptly on time, black Miss Oceola Jones rang the door bell of white Mrs. Dora Ellsworth’s grey stone house just off Madison. A butler who actually wore brass buttons opened the door, and she was shown upstairs to the music room. (The butler had been warned of her coming.) Ormond Hunter was already there, and they shook hands. In a moment, Mrs. Ellsworth came in, a tall stately grey-haired lady in black with a scarf that sort of floated behind her. She was tremendously intrigued at meeting Oceola, never having had before amongst all her artists a black one. And she was greatly impressed that Ormond Hunter should have recommended the girl. She began right away, treating her as a protegee; that is, she began asking her a great many questions she would not dare ask anyone else at a first meeting, except a protegee. She asked her how old she was and where her mother and father were and how she made her living and whose music she liked best to play and was she married and would she take one lump or two in her tea, with lemon or cream?

After tea, Oceola played. She played the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C Sharp Minor. She played from the Liszt Etudes. She played the St. Louis Blues. She played Ravel’s Pavannne pour une Enfante Défunte.And then she said she had to go. She was playing that night for a dance in Brooklyn for the benefit of the Urban League.

Mrs. Ellsworth and Ormond Hunter breathed, “How lovely!”

Mrs. Ellsworth said, “I am quite overcome, my dear. You play so beautifully.” She went on further to say, “You must let me help you. Who is your teacher?”

“I have none now,” Oceola replied. “I teach pupils myself. Don’t have any more time to study — nor money either.”

“But you must have time,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, “and money, also. Come back to see me on Tuesday. We will arrange it, my dear.”

And when the girl had gone, she turned to Ormond Hunter for advice on piano teachers to instruct those who already had genius, and need only to be developed.

II
Then began one of the most interesting periods in Mrs. Ellsworth’s whole experience in aiding the arts. The period of Oceola. For the Negro girl, as time went on, began to occupy a greater and greater place in Mrs. Ellsworth’s interests, to take up more and more of her time, and to use up more and more of her money. Not that Oceola ever asked for money, but Mrs. Ellsworth herself seemed to keep thinking of so much more Oceola needed.

At first it was hard to get Oceola to need anything. Mrs. Ellsworth had the feeling that the girl mistrusted her generosity, and Oceola did — for she had never met anybody interested in pure art before. Just to be given things for art’s sake seemed suspicious to Oceola. That first Tuesday, when the colored girl came back at Mrs. Ellsworth’s request, she answered the white woman’s questions with a why-look in her eyes.

“Don’t think I’m being personal, dear,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, “but I must know your background in order to help you. Now, tell me . . .”

Oceola wondered why on earth the woman wanted to help her. However, since Mrs. Ellsworth seemed interested in her life’s history, she brought it forth so as not to hinder the progress of the afternoon, for she wanted to get back to Harlem by six o’clock.

Born in Mobile in 1903. Yes, ma’am, she was older than she looked. Papa had a band, that is her step-father. Used to play for all the lodge turn-outs, picnics, dances, barbecues. You could get the best roast pig in the world in Mobile. Her mother used to play the organ in church, and when the deacons bought a piano after the big revival, her mama played that, too. Oceola played by ear for a long while until her mother taught her notes. Oceola played an organ, also, and a cornet.

“My, my,” said Mrs. Ellsworth.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Oceola. She had played and practiced on lots of instruments in the South before her step-father died. She always went to band rehearsals with him.

“And where was your father, dear?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth.

“My step-father had the band,” replied Oceola. Her mother left off playing in the church to go with him traveling in Billy Kersands’ Minstrels. He had the biggest mouth in the world, Kersands did, and used to let Oceola put both her hands in it at a time and stretch it. Well, she and her mama and step-papa settled down in Houston. Sometimes her parents had jobs and sometimes they didn’t. Often they were hungry, but Oceola went to school and had a regular piano-teacher, an old German woman, who gave her what technique she had today.

“A fine old teacher,” said Oceola. “She used to teach me half the time for nothing. God bless her.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Ellsworth. “She gave you an excellent foundation.”

“Sure did. But my step-papa died, got cut, and after that Mama didn’t have no more use for Houston so we moved to St. Louis. Mama got a job playing for the movies in a Market Street theater, and I played for a church choir, and saved some money and went to Wilberforce. Studied piano there, too. Played for all the college dances. Graduated. Came to New York and heard Rachmaninoff and was crazy about him. Then Mama died, so I’m keeping the little flat myself. One room is rented out.”

“Is she nice?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth, “your roomer?”

to finish the story…either buy Langston Hughes “Short Stories” or click to Read more here

Celebrating Willie Big Eyes Smith

January 19, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Doug Lohnes

Today is a special day! We are not only celebrating an Unsung Blues hero, but today marks the first day of celebrating Bluesman that goes unnoticed….The Blues Drummer. And in celebrating the Blues Drummer, we are Celebrating Willie Big Eyes Smith!

Willie “Big Eyes” Smith born on this day, January 19, 1936 – September 16, 2011 was a Grammy Award-winning American electric blues vocalist, harmonica player, and multi-award winning drummer. He was best known for several stints with the Muddy Waters band beginning in the early 1960s.

Born in Helena, Arkansas, Smith learned to play harmonica at age seventeen after moving to Chicago. Smith’s influences included listening to 78’s and the KFFA King Biscuit radio show, some of which were broadcast from Helena’s Miller Theater, where he saw guitar player Joe Willie Wilkins, and harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II. On a Chicago visit in 1953 his mother took him to hear Muddy Waters at the Zanzibar club, where Henry Strong’s harp playing inspired him to learn that instrument. In 1956, at the age of eighteen he formed a trio. He led the band on harp, Bobby Lee Burns played guitar and Clifton James was the drummer. As “Little Willie” Smith he played in the Rocket Four, led by blues guitarist Arthur “Big Boy” Spires, and made recordings that were later reissued on the Delmark label. In 1955 Smith played harmonica on Bo Diddley‘s recording of the Willie Dixon song “Diddy Wah Diddy” for the Checker label. Drummers were in more demand than harp players so Smith switched to drums and starting playing with Muddy Waters band. Smith recorded with Muddy on the 1960 album Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy, a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy.

In 1961, Smith became a regular member of Muddy Waters’ band, which then consisted of George “Mojo” Buford, Luther Tucker, Pat Hare and Otis Spann. By the mid ’60s, he’d left the band for more steady work as a cab driver. In the late ’60s he rejoined Muddy’s band and remained a permanent member until 1980. All of Muddy’s Grammy Award winning albums (Hard Again, I’m Ready, They Call Me Muddy Waters, Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live, The London Muddy Waters Session,and The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album) were released between 1971 and 1979 during Smith’s tenure with the band. Though he did not play on all of these albums, Smith is estimated to have participated in twelve sessions yielding eighty-four tracks.

In June 1980, Smith and other members of Muddy’s band Pinetop Perkins (piano), Calvin Jones (bass) and Jerry Portnoy (harmonica) struck out on their own, also recruiting veteran Chicago blues man Louis Myers (harmonica/guitar) to form The Legendary Blues Band, with the vocals shared by all. Later that year, Smith and the Legendary Blues Band appeared backing John Lee Hooker in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980). Smith was the only band member, besides Hooker, to appear onscreen in close-up. With varying personnel over the years, the Legendary Blues Band recorded seven albums, Life of Ease, Red Hot ‘n’ Blue, Woke Up with the Blues (nominated for a W. C. Handy Award), U B Da Judge, Prime Time Blues,and Money Talks, were recorded between 1981 to 1993. By the time Money Talks came out in 1993, Smith had become a very credible singer. The Legendary Blues Band toured with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton (whom Smith had recorded with in the 1964 Otis Spann recording of Pretty Girls Everywhere).

His first solo recording started in 1995 with Bag Full of Blues, with Pinetop Perkins, harpist Kim Wilson, plus guitarists James Wheeler, Nick Moss and Gareth Best. In 1999, Smith recorded with Muddy Waters‘ son Big Bill Morganfield on his albumRising Son. Smith’s album Way Back (2006), contained 11 songs, half of which he wrote. He was backed by Bob Margolin and Frank Krakowski on guitar, Pinetop Perkins on piano, and guest shots by James Cotton and others.

Smith’s 2008 album Born in Arkansas utilized bassman Bob Stroger, pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, guitarist Billy Flynn, guitarist Little Frank Krakowski (who has worked with Smith for years) and his son and drummer, Kenny “Beedy Eyes” Smith. In June 2010, Smith released Joined at the Hip with Pinetop Perkins. Joining these two in the studio were Stroger, and Kenny Smith on drums. John Primer, who was another Muddy Waters band alumnus, joined on lead guitar along with Frank Krakowski.

On February 13, 2011, Smith won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, an album he recorded with Pinetop Perkins. He remained active in his final year of life, encouraging Liz Mandeville to start her own record label (Blue Kitty Music) and he was featured on two tracts of her album, Clarksdale that was released in 2012.

TBTB Podcast Episode ADAM GUSSOW

January 12, 2016 talkingbouttheblues

By: Lamont Jack Pearley

Talking Bout The Blues Podcast had the unique pleasure of discussing Blues, Blues Harp and the artistic Journey with Adam Gussow.

The documentary “Satan and Adam” chronicles the unlikely pairing of legendary one-man band Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee and harmonica master Adam Gussow in a once in a lifetime film, shot over 20 years, and showcasing the greatest music duo you never got a chance to see… On this episode of Talking Bout The Blues we talk to the STreet harmonica Legend , 1/2 of “Satan and Adam..Adam Gussow

Celebrating Our Heritage and Preserving Blues Music