Best Of The Blues???

Not everyone subscribes to Blues Revue magazine, so I thought that I would post up their results of polling music journalists on their top picks for blues albums of the past decade. Of course, everyone has their own take on "best of" lists, but this is theirs:

1. Buddy Guy--Sweet Tea
2. R.L. Burnside--Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down
3. Otis Taylor--White African
4. Solomon Burke--Don't Give Up On Me
5. Koko Taylor--Old School
6. B.B. King--One Kind Favor
7. North Mississippi Allstars--Electric Blue Watermelon
8. Irma Thomas--After The Rain
9. John Hammond--Wicked Grin
10. Bobby Rush--Raw
11. Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials--Rattleshake
12. Buddy Guy--Skin Deep
13. The Holmes Brothers--Simple Truths
14. Mavis Staples--We'll Never Turn Back
15. Corey Harris--Mississippi to Mali
16. Nick Moss & the Flip Tops--Play It 'Til Tomorrow
17. Tommy Castro--Painkiller
18. Corey Harris & Henry Butler--Vu-Du Menz
19. Watermelon Slim & The Workers--Watermelon Slim & The Workers
20. Hubert Sumlin--About Them Shoes
21. James Blood Ulmer--Bad Blood In The City
22. Mighty Mo Rodgers--Redneck Blues
23. The Mannish Boys--Lowdown Feelin'
24. Otis Taylor--Recaptuing The Banjo
25. Kenny Wayne Sheppard & Various Artists--10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads

I can't quibble with what I haven't heard and, of course, if you know me then you know the ones that I have contain more that a smidgen of blues harp playing. Those would be numbers 9,19, 20, and 23. I can't judge the rest of the best, because I've only heard selected tunes on satellite radio....but I do think that they could have chosen a few more albums with some greasy blues harp playing gettin' it on. That's just my prejudice, and this is my blog, so I think that they could have found something by one of these bands that rank with the best:

1. Charlie Musselwhite
2. Little Charlie and the Nightcats
3. Rod Piazza
4. Mark Hummel
5. R.J. Mischo
6. Billy Branch
7. Kim Wilson
8. James Harman
9. Steve Guyger
10. Dennis Gruenling
11. Collard Greens & Gravy
12. Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets
13. John Nemeth
14. Mitch Kashmar
15. Darrell Nulisch
16. Gary Primich
17. The Hollywood Blue Flames
18. Sugar Ray Norcia & the Bluetones
19. Paul Oscher
20. Cephas and Wiggins

And so on and so forth...in my narrow minded ways. 'nuff for now.

Don't Mess With The Hookers

John Lee Hooker
featuring Earl Hooker
If You Miss 'Im...
I Got 'Im
Beat Goes On Records
BGOCD392

While sitting around minding my own business one day and listening to BB King's Bluesville satellite broadcast, a song came on with someone singing and sounding very close to BB King, and some nice wah wah slide guitar, sounding like Earl Hooker. Now, that didn't really catch my attention, but what did tweak my interest were the really nicely played blues harp licks in the song. Naturally, I had to find out just who the heck was blowing those fat tones. I'd heard the song before, but didn't remember such nice harp playing. Nice thing about the satellite radio station is that they tell you who's playing the song at the time. Sure enough, the credits said Is You Ever Seen A Blind Woman Cry by Earl Hooker. A little research using the wonders of the internet explained that Andrew "BB" Odom sang the song on an Earl Hooker album recorded for Bluesway back in 1968, and that Jeffrey Carp played the harp on that session. Having very little harp from Carp led me on a www search for this release. Jeff Carp's claim to fame is being tapped to play harp along with Paul Butterfield on Muddy Waters' Fathers and Sons lp, and I had a snippet here and a snippet there of his recorded output. I know, I know, I'm taking a way long time around getting to the point of this review--but much of the point is Jeff Carp as much as the Hooker boys. ANYWAY--I found some of those Bluesway recordings on recent a release of an Earl Hooker compilation from MCA called Simply The Best(which I'll grab at some point). I did find the song in question on Rhino's Blues Master Vol. 15--Slide Guitar Classics, by the way. I didn't find Earl's Bluesway album, but I did find this one under John Lee Hooker's name. Seems that Bluesway had both the Hooker cousins in the studio together for a several releases, AND Jeffrey Carp played in both of their bands. Hence and therefore, I picked up If You Miss 'Im...I've Got 'Im, which was recorded in 1969.

I got what I wanted--Jeffrey Carp's harmonica playing is all over this release, and he proves that he was a heck of a talent at playing that nasty ol' Chicago style blues harp. He and Earl play off each other very well and provide solid backing to John Lee's idiosycratic rhythmic style. I've got quite a bit of John Lee Hooker and this quickly became my favorite, not just because of Carp, but John Lee kicks butt with a band that includes heavy piano pounding by Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker, Chester 'Gino' Skaggs' bass thumping, and Roosevelt Shaw's driving drum kit. Paul Asbell leaps in a time or two on guitar when Earl isn't coaxing wah wah's.


If you know John Lee Hooker, then nothing is going to surprise you here. I think the fact that John Lee and Earl are paired up is special. Of course, plenty of blues fans feel that John Lee Hooker's best work was when he recorded with just him, his guitar, and his stomping foot. I think that could be the case when a backing band's not allowing him to be John Lee Hooker and takes his unique timing away--he did his own thing and tuned his own way, much like Lightnin' Hopkins did. It took a musician with big ears to back up either of these guys, and Jeffrey Carp exemplifies that--he played with both of 'em. Some of celebrity musicians on John Lee's '90s recording could have taken a lesson from John Lee Hooker's band here. It doesn't matter if he's doing his deep, brooding blues like Lonesome Mood (which is close to his hit I'm In The Mood) or doing his world reknown boogie stuff, as on Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang (which of course knocks off Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom), the band surrounds him in support, and Jeffrey Carp is a big part of that, most especially on the low down, slow grooves. Carp's harp drips and oozes heavy blues juice on If You Let Me, I'll Take Care Of You, he and JLH trade some nice licks back and forth. Just when you think that maybe the band will swamp him, they step back, and let those signature licks of John Lee Hooker blast through. They know how to let John Lee Hooker be John Lee Hooker. This is just good late '60s blues played right under the guidance of the man who put the boogie in boogie. By the way, the headline for this post is quoted by John Lee Hooker within the title cut about a night on the town he and Earl take, and how they run into some ruffians and how he tells Earl..."if you miss 'im...I've got 'im".

There may be better examples of Jeffrey Carp's harmonica playing out there somewhere, I just haven't found it. Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite are the well known entities of white boys blowing the blues back in the day, but I'd say, based on what I hear, that Jeffrey Carp's star was destined to rise--if. If, I don't know. Seems to be a mystery as far as just what happened to Jeff Carp. I have heard numerous tales, and most of them are along the lines of what the album producer Ed Michel said in the liner notes of the re-issue CD, "...Jeff Carp either fell off a boat while going up the Amazon, or fell off a boat while smuggling something back into the United States on the way back from South America. Went overboard and was never seen again". Other's claim that he fell off a boat while partying somewhere off a Carribean island. Dunno--but I do know that we lost a darned good blues harp player, and I'm glad that I found this example of what he could do with a Marine Band in his mouth. 'nuff for now.

p.s.--here's the post that Mike Lynch refers to in his comments on this post. I've heard this story before also, and Dick Shurman probably knows as well as anyone.

From the Blindman Blues forum:
I knew Jeff. He used to come see me when his boss at the time Sam Lay (before Earl Hooker hired him and guitarist Paul Asbell away from Sam) used to ask him to learn songs just like the record, to hear the records he was supposed to learn. (I believe he recorded with Sam for Testament.) I also saw him with Hooker a few times. He and Paul flew home from Cal. as soon as they got paid for the "Don't Have To Worry" LP because of Hooker's usual financial mistreatment. Jeff was one of the smartest people I ever knew, but also on the wild side. When there was campus unrest in early '69, Jeff was a liaison between the parties.

Supposedly he and his lady celebrated the Wolf "London Sessions" by booking a holiday cruise off Panama. Amid the New Year's Eve revelry onboard, a messed-up passenger went berserk and started stabbing people. Jeff jumped overboard, even though he couldn't swim, and that was that.

Playboy published a special magazine called "The Hippies" (you can imagine how insightful it wasn't) in the early '70s, and it includes Janis Joplin (with whom Jeff had a brief thing) taking an impressed reporter to see Jeff.

Jeff was originally from NYC, supposedly raised on the same block where King Curtis got killed.

Little Walter Wins A Grammy

It's official the Little Walter Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967 won a grammy. That is pretty cool for a blues harp player to snag one--especially 42 years after his death.

Big Walter's Blues News

Here's a link to some home recordings of Big Walter Horton that I've never heard. Each of them exemplifies the genius of the man and his extraordinary tone. This site is from the Swedish blue publication Jefferson Magazine. Just scroll down until you get to the eight downloadable music tracks. Click Here.

Bob Corritore turned me on to this through his excellent blues newsletter, which is a chocked full of blues we all can use. Go over to Bob's website and sign up. He always includes some great links to blue videos and audios. Instead of butchering the Big Walter information, I'll just let you read what he wrote:

More Big Walter information. In the last newsletter, we reported that a new Big Walter Horton reissue had come out called King Of The Harmonica Players. Since then, we have been notified by Clas Ahlstrand of the Scandinavian Blues Association, who recorded some of these wonderful sides on a portable recorder while visiting Chicago, that this is not a licenced release. Clas also reports that eight of these sides are available as free downloads on the Jefferson Magazine site. Along with the downloads are the story and photos of the journey to Chicago and the home recording sessions with Big Walter. Thank you Clas for this additional information, and for recording these great sides for the world to enjoy.

I really enjoyed hearing these recordings, so I just had to share.

A Bluesman's Education

R.J. Mischo
Knowledge You
Can't Get In College
Greaseland Records
GR20923

Got a little distracted by applying for a facebook account and figuring out how all that goes, but I've been meaning to follow-up my earlier teaser with more of a review of R.J. Mischos' latest. So here it be.

The proceedings kick off with really deep toned chromatic notes setting up a familiar travelling bluesman's need to just get home on Two Hours From Tulsa. I may use the "deep toned" phrase too often in my attempt to describe what I'm hearing, but by golly that's just what R.J. gets going--sounds like it is reverberating from the bottom of a barrel. The groove hints at Otis Rush's All Your Love I Miss Loving, in large part from Kid Andersen's guitar knowledge that he didn't get from college. I mentioned just how much he impressed me at the Rick Estrin and the Nightcats' show, and he certainly doesn't disappoint throughout this disc (which by the way he co-produced with Misho). He plays inspired guitar licks and it ain't no telling where the inspiration's coming from. One minute he's quoting a smidgen of Otis Rush and then throws out something akin to Albert King's style and then he threatens the fretboard with his own creations. A little tasty wah-wahed rhythm guitar backs him up, along with Sid Morris' organ swirls. I don't know if Rusty Zinn's doing the rhythm work or not. He and the Kid swap off on the lead solos, so I'll assume that they do the same with backing guitar. R.J. takes this one on home by working his chromatic from the low down notes to the high end.


Okay, that song took waayy too many words out of me, but I had to get them out. Now if that first number had the deep toned blues harp working, R.J. sounds like he absolutely swallowed his diatonic on Too Cool For School, because his thick notes come welling up from way down inside of him. This fast paced instrumental showcases what the man does best--worry the hell out of his harmonica reeds with great note choices. He lets everyone jump on this one, though, especially veteran Kedar Roy slapping on his upright bass with a little jazzy sensibility.

R.J. works his vocals up into his high blues falsetto and back down again, which is sort of his trademark singing style, on the title cut. I've always liked his singing. He works a lot of chords, octaves, and double stops into his harp solo,
as he explains just some of the things that a college education may not help. He's mastered being able to create and coax different tonal qualities from his harp playing, which always lends his releases a great deal of variety. His songs follow suit and keeps his program from getting stale with the same ol' blues.

Little Joe is a case in point. Driven by hand drums from June Core (ex-Nightcat drummer) and surprise...Rusty Zinn, R.J.'s melodic acoustic harmonica makes this sound like a country ballad that Marty Robbins could be comfortable singing, but this Little Joe ain't Hoss Cartwright's little brother. This one's always in trouble. Shifting from amped up wallop to acoustic harp, with the aforementioned chromatic work thrown in for good measure, is common to R.J. modus operarandi (or something like that).

Rusty Zinn's guitar swings into action and is featured prominently on Ain't Nothing New. I've posted about just how much I like Zinn's playing before and R.J. allows him to take it on home on this shuffling blues. He does nothing fancy, just plays down the river, solid, blues licks. He's a proven commodity when it comes to backing up what a blues harp player needs. He cut his teeth on Kim Wilson's solo efforts, so he knows the way around the block. R.J. whips out the amplified fatback again, and twists and turns the blues scale notes to suit him.

Not going to wade through each of the fourteen cuts on this release. These five that I just mentioned are sort of representative,you might say. Kid Andersen (who joined up with Rick Estrin after leaving Charlie Musselwhite) and Rusty Zinn bounce back and forth, sharing their lead chops with us, R.J. gets after it, regardless of whether he sucking on his chromatic or diatonic, amplified or acoustic. He's written some great tales to tell us and he sings them very well. As always with R.J. Mischo's stuff, I'd be hard press to pick out a favorite tune, but as always, if someone pressed hard enough, I choose a song with some of his nastiest, dirtiest, fattest, amplified tones. Don't Look Twice fits that bill, plus I love the Kid's unpredictable guitar licks, and his unabandoned playing on this tune warning all of us not to think twice about his woman. Love the whole enchilada, though. Mighty fine blues harmonica from him to us. Oh, there has to be some kind of mojo going on deep inside of Kid Andersen's Greaseland studios. Lots of good stuff sliding out of those doors. I still have a couple of excellent releases by the Kid that I need to share--soon. 'Nuff for now, though.

IBC Wraps It Up

Well, by all reports, Sonny Boy Terry's band played a couple of kickin' sets at the International Blues Challenge, but wasn't quite enough to sway the judges away from appointing Grady Champion as the winner. For those that are not familiar with the IBC process, each band is assigned a venue in which to showcase their talents. They match up against the same bands on both Thursday and Friday nights. The band with the best scores at each venue move on to the finals. Grady Champion's band was chosen from Sonny Boy's venue, and he went on to take the overall title. Check out the official results at the Blues Foundation's website. My blues harmonica breathren can check out what Grady Champion brought to the party at his website.

Sonny Boy Terry has convinced me that he's a way richer man by meeting so many fine, fine blues musicians, fans, music industry representativs, and just flat soaking up the atmosphere (and food). Winning would have just been the cherry topping the whipped cream.

And They're Off To Memphis

The Sonny Boy Terry band's heading off to Memphis tomorrow and here's wishing them well. Them boys gonna do alright! I stole the following message from Sonny Boy's website:
Well, everyone, January is upon us and that means Houston regional IBC winner the Sonny Boy Terry Band and solo/duo act winner, Dupree begin thier journey to compete in the International Blues Challenge sponsored by the Blues Foundation in Memphis.

Your support has meant so much to us through this competition and we want to "represent" Houston the right way. The band is excited, inspired, while getting prepared to perform real blues for a real blues audience in Memphis on January 21st - 23rd.

Now, for all fans, this is a great week for blues lovers, and we encourage everyone to take time off to join us for an incredible weekend. Seeing your faces in the audience cheering us on when we perform can only lead to more success. If this is something you'd like to be a part of, please visit the Blues Foundation website at www.blues.org. It's gonna be a rockin' good time!

For everyone who cannot make the journey, but is still curious interested in how we are doing in Memphis for the IBCs, you are able follow us in real time at www.facebook.com/sonnyboyterryband or via www.twitter,com/sonnyboyterry . We are very serious about hoping all of you follow us and share this wonderful experience. We will do our best to upload pics, videos, and letting you how well we are doing. AGAIN. THANKS EVERYONE.