​ Boogie Bill Webb was the epitome of down-home Blues. Born in Mississippi and making his home in New Orleans, he played a raw style of Blues that was already a throwback to an earlier era when he came along. Playing a battered old Telecaster that had once been submerged in a hurricane, he thumped bass notes with his thumb while picking at the top strings with with his first couple of fingers. Like many Country Blues artists including Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker chord changes were open to interpretation. He only released one album during his lifetime, DRINKIN’ AND STINKIN’ on Flying Fish Records in 1989, and it is our Hidden Gem this month. 

The title cut kicks off the proceedings, a lazy shuffle and a true story about three women who had been out drinking for three days without bothering to stop and bathe. “Bill’s Boogie Woogie” is an album highlight that showcases his guitar style up front. The combination of Mississippi Hill Country and New Orleans is on full display. One of the more unusual tracks is his rendition of King Curtis’ “Soul Serenade”. The raw stripped down approach with the rhythm section following wherever Bill happens to go is like wandering into an after-hours joint out in the sticks and joining the party.

“Rocky Mountain Blues” is a mid-tempo slow Blues that is about as ‘contemporary’ as he gets. The kind of mid-tempo Blues common throughout the world done Boogie Bill Webb style. “Love Me Because I Love My Baby So” is a New Orleans style ballad with Webb’s Mississippi side soaking it in chicken grease. On “Cuttin’ Out Baby” he tips his hat to the Second Line sounding like something you would expect to emanate from somewhere walking through the city at the right time of year while “Black Nights” is straight up chicken grease Blues.

In more recent years several albums worth of recordings have surface, usually live, but DRINKIN’ AND STINKIN’ remains his only studio release. For years it was the only album of his anybody had and it’s still a good album to put on when you want to strip away the excess and get back down to the real deal. 

​Much of modern Blues is centered around guitarists and screaming guitar solos with keyboards playing a support role but it wasn’t always that way. Besides the usual suspects such as Otis Spann and Pinetop Perkins the West Coast produced it’s own school of sophisticated piano Blues. The forerunner of this new school was a Texas native who migrated west, Charles Brown.

Born in Texas City, Brown was a classically trained pianist who graduated high school in Galveston then got a degree in chemistry at A&M. Settling in Los Angeles in 1943 he teamed up with guitarist Johnny Moore (brother of Nat ‘King’ Cole guitarist Oscar Moore) and bassist Eddie Williams as “Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers”. Together they laid the foundation for a new style of Blues that leaned heavily towards Jazz. Their influence would be felt by everyone from Ray Charles to Chuck Berry. Crooning was new to Blues, previously the domain of the balladeer, and nobody did it better than Charles Brown. After a few years Brown got tired of not receiving due credit on album despite being the star attraction in the group and went out on his own. DRIFTIN’ BLUES draws mainly from his early days with the Three Blazers giving a glimpse into the Central Avenue nightclubs of the post-war era.

The title track is Brown’s signature tune and his calling card. Opening with the glorious sound of Johnny Moore hitting a chord on his big box Gibson through tube amp and sliding down, Brown’s piano comes in as if said opening were a carpet laid out for him. Melancholy in its sophistication the song sets the stage. “Nite After Nite” and “Fool’s Paradise” play up the crooning while “Saving My Love For You” and “Honeysipper” provide West Coast sophistication to solid R&B numbers. “Black Nite” is the crowning moment. The usual melancholy gives way to a stark world weariness that takes the group to new heights.

While the title track and “Black Nite” are easily two of the highlights it’s at the end of the album that we get the first of two Christmas songs that would forever cement Charles Brown as a musical figure, “Merry Christmas Baby”. Although “Please Come Home For Christmas” is more widely known thanks in part to Johnny & Edgar Winter recording it “Merry Christmas Baby” is Brown at his tongue-in-cheek best. His laconic vocal delivery is coy as he delivers lines like “Merry Christmas pretty baby/You sure been good to me/You know I haven’t had a drink this morning/But I’m all lit up like a Christmas tree”. 

Charles Brown passed away in 1999, the same year he was inducted into the Rock ’n Roll Hall Of Fame.

​This month we celebrate all things summer with a gem of a git-down boogie platter. Let your hair down, take your wig off, and let loose. Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials have been cranking out Chicago slide guitar boogie for over three decades and we’re taking a listen to what could be called their second debut.

Their 1986 album ROUGH HOUSIN’ on Alligator Records is more of a precursor that sets the stage. It comes straight out of the South and West side clubs but the lineup with Dave Weld on rhythm guitar and Louis Henderson on drums only lasted the one album. CHICKEN, GRAVY, & BISCUITS debuted the lineup of Michael Garrett on rhythm guitar and Kelly Littleton on drums which other than a break or two and the temporary addition of a sax player remains intact to this day.
CHICKEN, GRAVY, AND BISCUITS not only debuted the long standing lineup in also features several tunes that have also remained staples over the years starting with the title track which opens the album. Who can resist an uptempo jumpin’ Chicago shuffle ode to the joys of a fresh hot plate of chicken and biscuits covered in gravy? “Master Charge” was one of Albert Collins’ popular tunes and the Blues Imperials cement their touring buddy’s classic with their interpretation. “S.D. Jones”has also hung around. The ’s’ stands for sugar, you know the rest. 

Lil’ Ed Williams & the Blues Imperials are one of the last of the old school Chicago Blues bands and their sound has remain unchanged through passing trends. The uptempo shuffles, simmering slow Blues, and the classic slide guitar from the last remnant of the source remain firmly grounded in the gritty Chicago clubs that spawned them. Their sound remains undiluted by Rock or Soul. CHICKEN, GRAVY, & BISCUITS is that sound announcing itself once and for all at the beginning. When the band kicks into “Face Like A Fish” or “20% Alcohol” you’re back in that funky club smoke hanging in the air so thick you can cut it with a dull knife. The real show stopper is reserved for the closing number, “Blues Imperial Theme”. Introducing the band one by one everybody gets a solo. Michael Garrett goes first, followed by a bass solo from James ‘Pookie’ Young that finds the typically reserved support player stretching out a bit, and finally Kelly Littleton. 

What you hear is what you get. The album was recorded in two weeks which was considered an indulgence after the first being cut in a single day. No overdubs to fatten up the sound, what you hear on the album is exactly what you hear from the stage. Northeast Ohio residents can typically find them at least once a year at Music Box in Cleveland and Natalie’s in Columbus.
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When Magic Sam was felled by a heart attack in December of 1969 at 32 years old he left a void that was never filled. His reverb-drenched guitar and plaintive vocals were a cornerstone of the then-new Chicago West Side sound influencing nearly everyone who came after him. His truncated catalog revolves around the iconic WEST SIDE SOUL and its follow-up BLACK MAGIC but a few other gems have emerged over the years, usually live recordings. GIVE ME TIME is a nice twist on things, a collection of recordings done in Sam's house one afternoon. This is about as intimate a recording as it gets and it's Magic Sam.
The material is standard Magic Sam fare with a few Blues chestnuts thrown in for good measure. What sets these recordings apart is the home setting; Sam is alone with his guitar burning through his catalogue with the same graceful intensity as his studio recordings. Occasionally his children can be heard in the background and pianist Eddie Boyd who wrote "Five Long Years" makes a guest vocal appearance on "Come Into My Arms". Otherwise it's just Sam, his guitar, and his amp with the reverb cranked up as if he were recording or on a gig. He sounds no different here than he does on any of his studio recordings which is the album's charm.
"Give Me Some Time" is a reworking of "That's All I Need" opening the album the same way it's predecessor opens WEST SIDE SOUL. His voice is more relaxed than his studio and live recordings while maintaining the same intensity. The dry sound is an extra feature in some ways, more nuances in his vocal inflections are present than on his live and studio recordings where the mics are frequently overloading. "You Belong To Me" comes up next slightly shifting the focus to his guitar work. Chords stabs and low-string fills provide solid backing but when he solos we get to hear the little details that comprise his style, hearing him riding the guitar's volume knob between single-note lines and chords. The bulk of the album follows this formula of insight throughout his catalog with many of the songs being more familiar songs with the different titles. One the exceptions is B.B. King's "Sweet Little Angel", a Blues standard at the time by one the main guys who followed in T-Bone Walker's footsteps with the single-string style that was markedly different from what guys like Muddy and Wolf brought up to Chicago from Mississippi. What set the West Side sound apart from the South Side sound was the single-string call-and-response soling style that T-Bone Walker had started. Texas guitarists such as Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, and Johnny 'Guitar' Watson furthered it locally but B.B. King was the first too take it to the masses with his early hits. This sound caught on with the then-younger generation of Chicago players and this is where they diverge from guitar styles such as the Muddy Waters/Jimmy Rogers combination. Ironically, it was these same Chicago players who would later have a huge influence on Texas players notably Austin pickers; Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Denny Freeman. To hear Magic Sam playing one of B.B.'s early and influential hits allows we the 21st Century listener a chance to revel in musical archeology and hear the lineage of Blues guitar passing down through the generations connecting the dots.
"That's All I Need" appears on the album as yet another exception to the rule. Where it previously opened the album reworked into a different title here the song itself is re-arranged. The minor key provides a platform for Sam to let loose with his vocal the way he normally would on stage or in the studio but with the intimacy of the dry home recordings. The most surprising inclusion is "Shake A Hand", a 1953 R&B hit originally recorded by Faye Adams and later recorded by a host of Rhythm & Blues artists. Once more we get to play musical archeologist and hear the influences of Gospel and Rhythm & Blues on his vocals a little more clearly.
For the uninitiated WEST SIDE SOUL is the place to start but for those who are already hip to his classic studio albums and some of the live recordings that have emerged here is a gem of raw beauty for your ears, Magic Sam sitting at home breezing through his songs. Music fans will enjoy the intimacy of it, musicians will be able to hear how he developed ideas into new ideas, and guitarists can study his playing closer than ever. Although this writer is loathe to recommend any streaming services due to their gouging of the artists whose work they profit off of an exception can be made in the case of many old Blues recordings since the royalties often went somewhere other than to the artists and their heirs anyhow. GIVE ME TIME is worth giving your time to hear a great artist in such a setting.

LIVE! B.B. KING ON STAGE is meant to take us back the late 50's chitlin circuit. Released in 1965, the album compiles his early 50’s RPM recordings with an overdubbed MC and audience. Somehow the effect works despite its overuse. Folks screaming and hollering through his early hits sounds completely natural. One in particular is exceptionally loud and sustaining and you get the impression that the engineers were having a blast dropping her in at all the right spots.Side One opens with “Please Love Me”, peacock strut of a shuffle, with a variation on the “Dust My Broom” lick kicking it off. The horns lay it on thick with a tenor-heavy repeating riff. One of the notable differences in B.B.’s earlier recordings is his guitar tone. Although still distinctly B.B. it’s rawer and dirtier than when he started to cross over, a result of the guitars and amps available at the time. The T-bone Walker influence is more evident and the overall sound of the band is post-war to the hilt, in step with artists like Lowell Fulson and Pee Wee Crayton.

“Every Day I Have The Blues”, “Sweet Sixteen”, and his breakout “3 O’clock Blues” continue the compilation with the overdubbed audience still adding atmosphere. The original “Rock Me Baby” stands out in stark contrast from its later recordings simmering like an alley cat in heat and if any track benefits from the fake audience it’s this one. As great as it is on its own they sound like a completely natural response. The song is restored to its original primal intent, the easy lope of the piano and rhythm section providing the perfect backdrop for B.B.’s straight to the chase plea.
Side Two opens with his signature “Sweet Little Angel” picking up the vibe but not the tempo on “Baby Look At Me” followed by the rhumba “Woke Up This Morning” with its swinging big band middle and wailing sax. “You Upset Me Baby” keeps it uptempo shuffling along at a steady clip. “You Upset Me Baby” brings us back to the after-hours vibe that made up most of Side One which continues through “I’ve Got a Right To Love My Baby”. “Let Me Love You” verges on Gospel closing out the album with a nice landing, though our infamous screaming lady could have been used more sparingly here.
Although these sides can be found on any early recording compilation, and have been reissued time and time again, the audience noise gives it a nightclub setting reminiscent of Redd Foxx, Lawanda Page, and other comedy albums. The album has never been issued on CD but LPs pop up on eBay from time to time. It’s a good collection of his early hits and the overdubbed audience noise, fake as it is, makes for an enjoyable listen. The introduction by the MC alone is worth searching it out; “You heard him sing, you heard him popping’ strings, now we’re gonna see him really do the thing! The sensation maker, the record breaker, B! B! King!”

BLUES GUITAR BLASTERS collects eleven guitarists in twenty-one tracks from the early to mid 50’s at the peak of the post-war era. Notable exceptions aside, the album highlights the Blues style of both the era and the geography from Texas and Oklahoma that migrated west to California.

Jimmy Nolen, most famous for his “chicken scratch” with James Brown (that’s him on “poppa’s Got A brand New Bag”, “Cold Sweat”, and Johnny Otis’ “Willie & The Handjive”) opens the album with “After Hours”, an late-night slow shuffle just west of Kansas City. Languid clean-toned guitar simmers through chorus after chorus of tasteful phrasing. Next up is a pair from Albert King, “Killing Floor" and “You Threw Your Love On Me Too Strong”, both showcasing his signature sound and style. 

Lowell Fulson continues the laid back vibe with the mid-tempo horn-driven “Talkin’ Woman” with its West Coast sound and the lazy shuffle “Every Time It Rains”. B.B. King is represented with a pair from his early days on RPM, swinging his heart out on the uptempo and optimistic “Early In The Morning” and burning through gritty instrumental “Talkin’ The Blues”. Both songs are also textbook examples of electric guitar through an overdriven tube amp. Elmore James is another iconic Blues guitarist included here and we get to hear him in a slightly different setting. “Dust My Blues” is of course the expected signature song but on “Elmo’s Shuffle” we get to hear him without a slide and he lays into some stinging licks over a jumpin’ boogie-woogie shuffle.

Lafayette Thomas was born in Louisiana and got his start in California where he helped define the West Coast sound. “Jumping In The Heart Of Town” elicits the memories of T-Bone Walker and Guitar Slim with it’s stinging guitar and boogie bass line as does the slow Blues “Standing In The Back Door Crying”. Guitar Slim himself makes an appearance with the call-and-response song-along “Certainly All” followed by his classic hit “The Things That I Used To Do” featuring a very young Ray Charles on his first session.

Much has been said about Ike Turner’s less than stellar behavior and the unfortunate thing for us music buffs is that it has overshadowed his musical contributions. As a teenage talent scout for Sun Records he discovered Chester Burnette, a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf, and brought him to Sam Phillips to record who in turn sold his contract to the Chess brothers. Also while at Sun Records Ike played on a number by Jackie Brenston called “Rocket 88”, hailed by many as the first Rock ’n’ Roll record for its distorted guitar, an effect produced by a tear in the speaker filled in with a piece of paper. The amp and the paper, still shoved inside the speaker, are on display at Sun Studio. His earlier work has somewhat fallen by the wayside while the Ike & Tina catalog remains fairly well known. Prior to Tina he recorded a number of instrumentals with his Kings Of Rhythm and here we are treated to one of his baddest, “Twistin’ The Strings”. His over the top whammy bar action foreshadows both Lonnie Mack and Jimi Hendrix while being in a league of its own.

Texas takes over for the next two pairs. Houston Third Ward native Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson shows up with his classic slow Blues “Three Hours Past Midnight”, his one-finger picking style in full force yanking the strings for all they’re worth. The theme is continued as the tempo picks up with “Oh Babe”. Austin-born Pee Wee Crayton was a T-Bone disciple like no other and the Jump Blues instrumental “Twinky” shows him flying that Texas flag with pride complete with traces of Western Swing in his chord work. “Mistreated So Bad” is another simmering after-hours Blues in the same vein as the opening track, this one with vocals.

T-Bone Walker had an overarching influence on nearly all the guitarists on this set, as well as everyone who came after them, so it’s only fitting that the man himself be represented here. “Hey Hey Baby” is an uptempo swinging Texas shuffle with horns and an uncommonly pronounced organ playing what could be horn parts. T-Bone’s guitar is classic T-Bone and is as simultaneously earthy and sophisticated as ever.

Two more iconic heavyweights close out the collection, John Lee Hooker in his typical gutbucket gear with “I Had A Good Girl” and Elmore James once again with “Hawaiian Boogie” which follows familiar territory with a slight twist.

Once upon a time Blues and Rhythm & Blues bands cranked out hip shaken’ house rocking’ music that reflected the optimism of better times ahead. Across the U.S. the chitlin’ circuit was home to the wildest music played by some of the wildest musicians to ever walk the audience. BLUES GUITAR BLASTERS captures a brief moment in time just before the birth of Rock ’n’ Roll when all the ingredients were percolating and gives us a glimpse into that world. Next month we’ll peek deeper with a rare B.B. King live album from before his crossover success.

Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded the same way many Blues performers of his generation did, for anybody and everybody who provided a flat fee which happened to consist of cash, liquor, or both. As a result, some albums happen to have caught him on a good day while others find him flying on autopilot. One of his most inspired albums was cut when he entered a recording studio in 1954 with bassist Donald Cooks and drummer Ben Turner to record for Herald Records. No information has been forthcoming regarding the circumstances surrounding the recordings, and maybe there are none save it just being an “on” day, but at the peak of the session(s) Lightnin’s trademark Texas boogie running through an overdriven tube amp foreshadowed Rock ’n’ Roll at least a year before its explosion and set a template for an entire school of guitar slingers.

Initially sales were slow and the first couple LP rereleases continued the trend. Aimed at the Folk/Blues market of the time his juke joint boogie in overdrive just didn’t click. That changed over the years as another generation of Blues fans who preferred the music in its full throttle primal form discovered Lightnin’. The full sessions were released on Diving Duck Records as two LPs, BAD BOOGIE VOLUME 1 and BAD BOOGIE VOLUME 2. Running in chronological order Lightnin’s amp can be heard to warm up over the course the session. At the beginning, throughout Volume 1, it’s fairly clean with just a bit of snarl as he navigates through more or less familiar territory in fine form. Volume 2, however, is where things start to happen. The tubes in the amp have warmed, saturating the sound, and Lightnin’ himself is feeling loose and fired up at the same time. Apparently the liquor kicked in about the same time as the guitar amp and he’s off flying through the stratosphere.

Three songs into Side 1 of Volume 2 Lightnin’ peaks with the guitar instrumental that became a standard for every guitar slinger to follow, “Hopkins Sky Hop”. Popular opinion places Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88” with Ike Turner from 1951 as the first Rock ’n’ Roll record because of its distorted guitar but the song is still very much a Jump Blues number featuring piano and saxophone with the distorted guitar merely doubling the bass line, a common studio trick prior to widespread use of the electric bass. “Hopkins Sky Hop” on the other hand is pure unadulterated guitar boogie in all its raw six-string splendor. Electric guitar and rhythm section, nothing more, tube amp overdriving. Recording engineers of the time would often tell guitarists to turn down which would affect not only the volume but the tone due to the inherent qualities of vacuum tube technology, while on gigs they would turn their amps up resulting in a glorious sound that equipment manufacturers have been trying to reproduce ever since. Buddy Guy struggled famously with this. No such problem plagued Lightnin’ on this day in 1954, his amp is turned up and while not a live album he’s flying like we can only imagine he sounded in the juke joints of Houston. Other highlights are “Moving’ Out Boogie”, “My Little Kewpie Doll”, and “Had A Gal Called Sal”.

The two BAD BOOGIE LPs can still be found and with numerous CD releases over the years were eventually released as THE HERALD SESSIONS. His influence was echoed in 1983 with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble’s “Rude Mood” from their debut album TEXAS FLOOD and in just about every guitar boogie instrumental since. With a lack of live recordings this may be also be one of the closest representations of Lightnin’ sounded in his natural element.