More iTune Diddies

I downloaded these some time ago and been reaping what I sewed (or enjoying listening to them). I balked at posting them up, because of the aforementioned problem of having no liner notes to straighten me out on specifics. So, to be able to share what I know is limited unless I visit the artist's or record company websites and glean the information from there. The alternative is to buy the hard copy CD, but when I'm just cruising around the iTunes site looking for a little variety from a variety of artists, well, I just can't afford to do that. I can download a couple of tunes that really move me from 10 different blues albums for $20. The problem there is that sometimes I end up downloading half of an artist's CD anyway because I just can't drag myself away.



I knew absolutely nothing about Alex Rossi, other than that he was a harp player that I had not heard about before. The title cut from his Topcat Records' Let Me In convinced me that he was indeed a player. He comes out of the gate with the type of rip, snorting amplified harp tones that I love to hear. So he hooked me immediately. Nothing fancy, just in yo' face deep harp tone. Turns out that Rossi is from Brazil. It never ceases to amaze me just how studied foreigners are in the book of amplified Chicago blues type harp blowing and he has it down pat. Normally, what I find lacking with bluesmen from another country are the vocals. Sometimes they have just enough of their native tongue inflections to throw things off a bit. Rossi's singing is not bad at all, but when he turns the vocals over to someone else and just whomps on the blues harp the songs have just a bit more impact. Case in point is the female vocalist (I'll assume it's Kathy Prather from what I gleaned from the CD cover) on Good Lover and on which Rossi's extended intro gave me the impression that it would be a instrumental. She has a lot of Angela Strehli swagger in her delivery and whoever plays the guitars, lead and rhythm, lays out some mighty fine picking.

This was recorded while Rossi was hanging out in Dallas and Richard Chalk (Topcat's top cat) has lined up some of Dallas' finest to join him in the studio, including Chalk. So Hash Brown or Holland K. Smith are probably the guitar slingers, but then there is Phil Guy listed as being a party to the party also. I'll go out on a limb and say that it it probably Guy's vocals and guitar that infused the incredibly FUNKY Show Me Your Bombacha. Ever go and listen to Buddy Guy's schtick when he tells the band to "make it so funky that I can smell it"? Well, this fits that bill. It sounds amazingly close to what Willie King puts out when he's being a funkmonkey because it sounds a lot like him. Rossi gets down with the funk fun on it, too. I stayed around and sucked six songs from Alex. Tell Me How You Like It, Let Me In, The Sun Shining, Good Lover, I Just Want To Make Love To You and the title cut. I thought all of them stood out well. As for originals, Tell Me How You Like It had some nice (or nasty) stuff going for it, including some more outstanding guitar solo spots.



While I was cruising, I just had to stick some of Carey & Lurrie Bell's Gettin Up Live from Delmark Records. One of the first posts that I placed on the blog was about meeting Carey Bell at Bob Margolin's gig at Blind Willies in Atlanta and what a nice guy that I found him to be. He was obviously really proud when he told that he had just released a CD with his son on Alligator Records which was an acoustic affair recorded in Finland. This live Delmark record from Buddy Guy's Legends blues club in Chicago took place not very long after Carey had left the hospital after suffering a stroke and I think breaking his hip. This is one of those releases that I'll go back and order a hard copy of and the accompanying DVD--just haven't got around to it, so the next best thing was to do the iTunes thang. Carey leaves a sweet final chapter in his legacy before leaving us.

Both Carey and Lurrie are in fine form, which in Lurrie's case has been well documented to not always be the case--but he's conquered his demons and is on top of his game once again and proves that no one can back a harp player in the old school style like he can. He works around his dad's blowing much in the same way that Robert Jr. Lockwood and Luther Tucker and some of those guys used to do in the Chess studios. When it's time to break out, then he let's it out--but minus any histrionics that marr so many blues releases today. He does what Lurrie has been known to do when on top of his game and that's to play with taste, restraint and deep soul. Of course, Carey's always deep soul shines through as it does on most everything that he's waxed. No earth shattering new stuff happening. Just two legendary blues musicians doing their thing with a total lack of pretension. Carey proves that he can still carry an instrumental with Bell's Back on in which he sticks his trademark licks, that always distinguishes who he is from all the other Chi-town blues harp slinger. He walked the same bar floors as the other harp giants, but developed his own lick vocabulary that was recognizable as only Carey Bell's. Lurrie sticks his little contributions into the proceedings quite nicely, also. I took a couple from the Legends' gig and a couple from recordings of Carey and Lurrie at home (which is on the same release) with plans to buy the real meal deal at some point. If you know the Bell guys, then you know what to expect. If you don't you might sample some earlier Carey Bell from Delmark, such as Heartaches and Pain and has some of Lurrie's guitar on it too.

I grabbed a couple of tunes from Cedric Burnside and Lightin' Malcolm's 2 Man Wrecking Crew, on the Delta Groove label, because they were the two cuts on which Jason Ricci was lending his estimable harp skills. If you aren't familiar with Jason Ricci, then he's just about the hottest thing since sliced bread in the harmonica world. He can absolutely shred the harmonica or he can do as he does here, provide fabulous backing riffs for his bud, Cedric. Burnside, of course, is R.L. Burnside's grandson and he played drums with him from the early age of 13 and Steve 'Lighntnin' Malcolm hung around the North Mississippi hillsides long enough to learn the vibe of the land and they hooked up and do pretty much a type of tribute to granddad filtered through more modern lenses. Of course, R.L. got dragged through some strange twists of blues modernity before he passed and some folks liked it and some didn't. The couple of tunes that I took to the iPod were pretty much in that Burnside/Junior Kimbrough one chord style with great guitar from Malcolm and vocals from both, but it's Ricci's harp, especially on the Smokestack Lightning sounding groove of Mad Man Blues, that really adds to the show. He's fully amped up and no one can pull the same harp tones from the reeds that Ricci can, but he isn't trying to steal the show and he doesn't--it just sticks out in my ear more than it may in someone's who isn't as into harp as myself. He gets some really nice acoustic work in on She Don't Love Me No More. I listened to clips from the entire release and have to say that these guys are most successful when they stick to what they were raised around in North Mississippi. When they stray too far down the rock road, then I lose a interest.



Another duo on the scene is Patrick Rynn and Chris James and they are sorta kinda doing a retro thang revolving around mostly originals on Earwig's Stop and Think About It--and that are also mostly derivative--but then a lot of stuff nowadays follows suit. Not being negative, because I love this stuff. If you've been listening to blues as long as I have then you'll be able tell exactly which Muddy Waters' tune sounds like Mr. Coffee or that Stop and Think About It slips from somewhere out of the Elmore James book of blues and so on. My attention was drawn to these guys from hearing Mr. Coffee and You're Gone being played on Sirius radio's blues rotation and, of course, it was that rock solid amplified blues harp that caught my ear. So, here I was thinking that another good harp player had slip beneath my radar, because I figured since the harp was such a significant piece of both these tunes that one of 'em blew (or mostly sucked) the thing. Naw, turned out it was just one of those threads that wind around and end up spooled around someone who keeps a finger in the puddin'. Took me an e-mail to Bob Corritore to confirm my suspicsions that it was his fine self blowing up a storm with Patrick and Chris. Now the thread that I speak of has a very, very young Chris James sitting in with and becoming a harp player and then a bass player with Tomcat Courtney (who's posted about earlier w/Bob on harp) out in California. Years later, after he met Patrick Rynn and formed the Blues Four band in Chicago, they ended up in Phoenix playing with Tomcat and becoming a part of the Rhythm Room (Bob's Club) house band. Anyway, that bio tidbit led me into believing that since there seemed to be a Bob thread going that he was mostly putting down the good stuff on this release.

Even though the cover depicts a duo, this is ensemble type Chicago blues. The original You're Gone is a prime example stop time Chi-town shuffling in that model that Muddy and the boys set up for us back in the day. Corritore's harp is absolutely front and center and he gets the spotlight solo rounds that Rynn and James unselfishly throw out to him. There is great driving guitar that has it moment, but the group groove is the focus. And, that's the way it goes with most of the CD. This tune and Mr. Coffee (I'm Good To The Last Drop) have found their ways on to Sirius radios blues rotation with a bit of frequency and they let Corritore's harp light shine on Mr. Coffee as well. I hope enough people buy the CD so they know enough to give Bob Corritore credit for the fine work here. They're not too many foolish folks like myself that'll research these iTunes to find out who's who. These guys really do get some old school guitar tonal distortion going on here. The Elmore James' cover of Got To Move has the nastiest distorted chords that I've heard since Pat Hare's and I loved his work and it is the only tune I downloaded without Bob's harp because I love that dirt. Same with the Elmore sounding title song (Stop and Think About It)on which they express that exasperation with the people who think they know it all. By the way, Bob has a great newsletter that is full of great blues news. Just yesterday, it had a link to some great pictures of Kim Wilson and Amanda's wedding while they were working a Blues Cruise gig.

Okay, this has taken me waayy longer that I wanted and I'm tire of writing and I'm sure that you're tired of reading. I'll just pop out some snippets of the rest that I've captured:
Mitch Kashmar--Live from LaBlatt I've have several of Mitch's studio albums and I think he is one of the best out there today and he tongue blocks every note (ask a harpman about that). I just picked up a few that I felt that he'd stretch out a bit on a live stage. I knew that the musicianship would be there and it was and he blew up a storm. I enjoyed his covers of You're The One and Sugar Sweet. He pulls out all the harp stops and tricks up his sleeve and lets 'em fly. Good stuff!

Carlos DelJunco--I pulled some tunes from Blues Mongrel and his latest, Steady Movin'. If you know and like Carlos, then you have both of these. This guy is virtuosic. He gets tones that I've never heard anyone else get--kinda like Jason Ricci and like Ricci, he'll stray from the blues and let his freak flag fly. When he plays the blues, though, he's on a different plane than the rest of us and he'll twist it to where he wants it. He takes Little Walter's classic Blues With A Feeling out for a spin that is only recognizable by the lyrics, because he sets it up on a totally different stage and when he puts the harp to mouth he gets otherworldly with it and it works. Oh, and the same can be said for Amazing Grace--you've never heard it played like DelJunco does it. He always provides his harp key choices for which songs, if you have the CD's liner notes. Sweet stuff!

Dave Herrero--Austin to Chicago I picked out the two tunes to which Mark 'Kaz' Kazanoff (everybody's go to horn chart man)lends his harp chops. Leave Me Be kicks off with some of Herrero's spot on Muddy style slide with Kaz emulating Little Walter perfectly and sets up the Chicago part of the album's title. Herrero gets a bit fancier with his guitar riffs that Muddy did, but it's solid Chicago and his vocals are darned good also. The Austin equation comes in with an old fashion Texas style shuffle on Problem on which Kazanoff supplies riffs that are more swamp Louisiana in nature, such as Slim Harpo or Lazy Lester would be getting down with. Seems like a good release for Herrero and it's one that I'll revisit when I'm looking around and not as harp focused. Anyway--that's all folks.

iPodner Rides Again

Had the hankering to add a few new blues to the 'ol iPod and thought that I would first check out Tomcat Courtney, who Bob Corritore touted in an e-mail to me after I praised the harp work that he laid down with Dave Riley. I think I've mentioned Bob before as one the movers and groovers attempting to keep the blues vital. I don't think I've mentioned how well I enjoyed Dave Riley's Travellin' Down The Dirt Road on Blue Witch, which is a fairly new label that is rounding up some blues cats that have never gotten their due. The Riley CD is a no frills, old time, good time blues with solid guitar work supporting a great blues voice and supported by Corritore's in the pocket harp work and not much else in the way of instrumentation. Tomcat Courtney's Blue Witch release Downsville Blues is in much the same vein, but has an even older old time blues vibe informed by the 78 year old's generation. Even though he's been in San Diego since the '70s, he was born in Marlin, Texas and there is no doubt that those rolling hills were alive with the sound of music--blues music from the likes of Lightning Hopkins, Frankie Lee Sims, and Lil' Son Jackson and Courtney seems to have deeply absorbed the style well, especially Ol' Sam Hopkin's school of blues.


I picked out tunes in which I felt Corritore's harp was really helping put the song into a deeper blues zone, not to say that the ol' Tomcat wasn't getting it done. These tunes remind me most of what Lightning was conjuring up with an electric guitar in his lap, but there is little of the boogie mode that he switched on frequently. Tomcat keeps these timepieces smoldering at low boil, just short of a lope. Most of Downsville Blues' cuts are his originals, but they lean on the traditional ideas that have floated in and out of blues songs since the genre took a name. Cook My Breakfast is informed by the drive that gave Lil' Son Jackson's version of Rock Me Baby its popularity. Tomcat takes the Wolf's Smokestack Lightning's main riff and makes it work well within his I Wonder and Corritore seems to know exactly what fat toned note choices will best enhance the song. His Railroad Avenue is about being railroaded by his woman who has parties with her friends drinking wine and smoking crack and he and Bob bounce off each other effectively. The lone cover that I downloaded is a unique take on Bottle Up and Go in which he throws out his own lyrical ideas--which seems to be traditional with this tune and other blues that one can imagine being jammed down at a juke with verses tacked on to keep the dancers sweating and stomping into the night.

So, what Tomcat Courtney has going on here is simply throwback blues played the way that he's always played them. I think he is a testament to the fact that not all Texas bluesmen who landed on the West Coast gravitated to the swinging, uptown, horn driven sounds we associate with the West Coast sound. Some stayed downhome and real--like the Tomcat. Neither he nor Corritore are out of the flash and dash school of play. When they solo, they get the gritty going and aren't afraid to get dirty. Corritore's gets some really nice amp tones honkin' in his support and it is in support where he stays, with no intentions of stealing the show--I think they call it sympathetic support. In this case, Tomcat needs no sympathy and puts on a heck of a show for any aged bluesman, much less a 78 year old. At some point I'll probably round up the rest of the tunes on this release.
*************************************************************************************
When Blacktop Records folded a few years back and its catalogue entered a limbo phase, I wanted to kick myself for not buying some of their releases that I kept putting off for one reason or another. Rod Piazza's Alphabet Blues was one of those that I regretted not getting my hands on and while I was surfing around lining the Tomcat stuff up, I saw that iTunes had Blacktop stuff available and decided to add a few of Rod's tunes to this latest visit. I'm also a big fan of Lee McBee and pulled up Mike Morgan and the Crawl's first Blacktop effort with McBee on board as vocalist and harp blower and grabbed the songs that best featured his huffing and puffing.

Both of these releases have been around for quite some time (except when in the aforementioned limbo) and most of you that have been blues fans for awhile probably have heard tunes from these. Let's just say that they are fairly representative of what both of these blues aggregations are known for--solid musicianship and heartfelt blues.

Piazza's Blues In '92 needs to be in his set list right now because it sums up just how absolutely rotten economic conditions were in 1992. His slow blues message is that things just can't possibly get much worse and his fat smack harp tones accentuate the mood. He might consider updating this one. Hydramatic simply takes off on Rocket 88, Too Many Drivers, or any of the myriad of upbeat blues tunes comparing the female persuasion to automobiles. Alex Schulz drives the quick shuffled sounds on Somebody with some tasty, tasty guitar licks with just a harp lick or two thrown in by Piazza--a good example of the ensemble playing (especially with Honey's rolling piano notes) that the Mighty Flyers have always been known for producing and this is one of his best units. Not that Piazza has ever gathered together a lesser band, but this era was a fertile one for the Mighty Flyers. Just darned good Rod Piazza stuff.

Mike Morgan's slide and Lee McBee's harp open up the lowdown, slowdown blues I'm Worried (from the Rough and Ready release)until McBee's made for the blues vocals sing about just how long he is worried about what else?--his woman. Nothing fancy just down the river, straight up blues played right. Then apparently, it's McBee that's done the wrong and begs to be allowed to return in Take Me Back which showcases his fine harp playing. McBee has been in and out of Dallas' Mike Morgan's and the Crawl band over the years and being the harpcentrict guy that I am, those with him are the CDs that I prefer. I chose these two tunes because I could hear his harp in the snippets. One of the benefits (to me) of iTunes is that I can pick and choose which cuts I want from an album, but sometimes the snippets reveal too little about instrumentation that may still come along--such as an outstanding, hair-raising harp solo that occurs later in the song. Also, neither these snippets nor my few song choices are grounds for reviewing an entire CD, so that's not the purpose of this post. I'm just relaying what me and my iPodner are doing.

Let me say that contrary to the impression that I'm giving, I do listen to plenty of blues band without harp players. I have tons of recordings with nary a whiff of a harp note on them, but at some point, due to basic Economics 101, I had to narrow down what I was going to purchase, so at some point that meant that those purchases would have some meaty blues harp on the disc. So, with the advent of satellite radio, I can listen to a variety of styles, but when it come to buying, I have to tone it down a bit and bite the bullet and go with the harp.

Okay, now that that's out of the way. Another set of recordings that I discovered on iTunes that I wished I'd gotten before they went out of print for awhile were by The Legendary Blues Band. The tunes that I downloaded were chosen for two reasons: Jerry__Portnoy. He and Pinetop Perkins, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Louis Myers and Calvin Jones were Muddy Waters alumni who recorded the Rounder album called Life of Ease, from which I pulled good examples of Portnoy getting down on it. Over the years the personnel changed, but the first couple of Rounder issues normally get the highest kudos. This was Muddy's band, so they were a rock solid unit, but the dynamics of Muddy's vocals left them needy in that category. Think I left Portnoy off my harp player's list and that is a major oversight. No one short of Kim Wilson gets that Chicago sound down pat better than JP does, plus I learned a ton from his instructional CDs.

He gets the after hours Little Walter's Sad Hours type of stuff happening on Blues for Big Nate, recalls George Harmonica Smith's style on Woke Up With The Blues, deep warbles going on the stop time Love You To The Bone and jumps and swings the boogie on Snakeskin Strut. He proves that he can hang with a horn section on the title cut Life of Ease as he blasts through the song with his fat runs. Boy, do I love his stuff on this release. There just ain't enough Jerry Pornoy out there, so I'm glad this is available as a testament to his skills.

I haven't seen Cadillac Records yet, for one reason. It hasn't made it to my small Texas burg and it may not. Might have to leave town to catch it. There's a lot of hoopla and dissing and slamming going on the discussion boards around the world wide web, but I know this--Kim Wilson is playing the Little Walter harp parts, so I'm gonna see it. Sure, Hollywood has a way of botching biopics frequently and why we'd expect a story about Chess records and their recording artists to be an exception is wishful thinking. One of the major craw sticking scenarios portrays Little Walter as someone who shot and killed a man for performing with his name. Never happened according to LW biographers and most harp fans are a little peeved that the general public will come away with the impression that he was a murderer. Pretty audacious fact to play around with I'd say, but what the hey--it's only a movie.

When I got around to downloading from the Cadillac Records companion CD, I was weary of the process and simply grabbed Kim Wilson blowing Little Walter's masterpiece Juke and I just had to have the live version of Elvis Presley singing My Babe. Of course, KW slays his tune and kicks booty and Elvis does the same. I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but you know the man could sing the blues. I may re-visit this release and pull a few more of the harp tunes off at some point.



Way back in the day, an transplanted Okie from Oklahoma was making a name for himself in Paul Butterfield's Blues Band in Chicago, which was the first integrated blues band to be recorded by a major label in the early '60s. The guitar tandem of he and Mike Bloomfield were a formidable pair that were as much a reason for the band's success as Butterfield's scorching harp skills were. All have passed on, but Elvin Bishop still soldiers on and keeps doing what he's been doing and doing it better than ever and more prolific than ever.

His latest recording, The Blues Rolls On, enticed B.B. King, George Thorogood, Derek Trucks, James Cotton, Warren Hayes, Kim Wilson, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Angela Strehli, John Nemeth, The Homemade Jamz Band and R.C. Carrier into the studio to help him sling the hash. A slate of artists like these on one CD could prove to be more of a train wreck than anything resembling a cohesive recording, but Bishop pulls it off and more importantly is never overshadowed on his own disc. Well, I'm judging by the iTunes snippets and the few tunes that I stuck on my podner, but he appears to shift gears with each of the strengths of his guests and proves just how versatile he can be.

My decision was based on not being able to pass up Angela Strehli's contribution and she just happened to share Night Time Is The Right Time with the superb John Nemeth. Bishop kicks it off with what he is best known for--scorching slide guitar. They absolutely take ownership of this classic tune and wail its heart out with Nemeth taking on the opening verses and Strehli taking it home. Nemeth whips his harp out to get some nasty licks in and around Bishop's slip sliding around. Wow! It does cook with gas. I decided to hang with two other tunes featuring Nemeth; Who's The Fool with Kid Andersen and Bishop swapping licks and getting down and an instrumental version of Jimmy Reed's Honest I Do that Bishop slays with his slide copping the melody and Nemeth nailing the harp tone. So, don't let the plethora of guest artist sway you away from this one because they play to his strengths and strenthen his weaknesses. Elvin Bishop fans owe this one to themselves. Anyway--'Nuff for Now.