New Blues Review 6-24-25
By Jack Roy
Memphis Slim – The Gate Of Horn (Craft)
Bio – “Memphis Slim’s birth name was John Len Chatman, and he was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father Peter Chatman sang, played piano and guitar, and operated juke joints, and it is now commonly believed that Slim took the name to honor his father when he first recorded for Okeh Records in 1940. Although he started performing under the name Memphis Slim later that same year, he continued to publish songs under the name Peter Chatman. Chatman spent most of the 1930s performing in honky-tonks, dance halls, and gambling joints in West Memphis, Arkansas and southeast Missouri. He settled in Chicago in 1939, and began teaming with Big Bill Broonzy in clubs soon afterward. In 1940 and 1941, he recorded two songs for Bluebird Records that became part of his repertoire for decades, “Beer Drinking Woman,” and “Grinder Man Blues.” Both tracks were released under the name “Memphis Slim,” given to him by Bluebird’s producer, Lester Melrose. Slim became a regular session musician for Bluebird, and his piano talents supported established stars such as John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, Washboard Sam, and Jazz Gillum. Many of Slim’s recordings and performances until the mid-1940s were with guitarist and singer Broonzy, who had recruited Slim to be his piano player after Joshua Altheimer’s death in 1940. After World War II, Slim began leading bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump-blues, generally included saxophones, bass, drums, and piano. With the decline of blues recording by the majors, Slim worked with the emerging independent labels. Starting in late 1945, he recorded with trios for the small Chicago-based label Hy-Tone. With a lineup of alto saxophone, tenor sax, piano, and string bass (Willie Dixon played the bass on the first session), he signed with the Miracle label in the fall of 1946. One of the numbers recorded at the first session was the ebullient boogie “Rockin’ the House,” from which his band would take its name. Slim and the House Rockers recorded mainly for Miracle through 1949, enjoying commercial success. Among the songs they recorded were “Messin’ Around,” which reached number one on the R&B charts in 1948, and “Harlem Bound.” In 1947, the day after producing a concert by Slim, Broonzy, and Williamson at New York City’s Town Hall, folklorist Alan Lomax brought the three musicians to the Decca studios to record, with Slim on vocal and piano. Lomax presented sections of this recording on BBC radio in the early 1950s as a documentary titled The Art of the Negro, and later released an expanded version as the LP Blues in the Mississippi Night. In 1949, Slim expanded his combo to a quintet by adding a drummer; the group was now spending most of its time on tour, leading to off-contract recording sessions for King in Cincinnati and Peacock in Houston. One of Slim’s 1947 recordings for Miracle, released in 1949, was originally titled “Nobody Loves Me”. It has become famous as “Every Day I Have the Blues.” The tune was recorded in 1950 by Lowell Fulson , and subsequently by a raft of artists including B. B. King, Elmore James, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Natalie Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan, Carlos Santana, and Lou Rawls. Joe Williams recorded it in 1952 for Checker; his remake from 1956 (included in Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992. “Every Day I Have the Blues” is also seen in John Mayer’s, Where The Light Is, a DVD (and CD) live recording in Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre featuring Steve Jordan (drums) and Pino Palladino (bass). Early in 1950, Miracle succumbed to financial troubles, but its owners regrouped to form the Premium label, and Slim remained on board until the successor company faltered in the summer of 1951. His February 1951 session for Premium saw two changes in the House Rockers’ lineup: Slim started using two tenor saxophones instead of the alto and tenor combination, and he made a trial of adding guitarist Ike Perkins. His last session for Premium kept the two-tenor lineup but dispensed with the guitar. During his time with Premium, Slim first recorded his song “Mother Earth.” Slim made just one session for King, but the company bought his Hy-Tone sides in 1948 and acquired his Miracle masters after it failed in 1950. He was never a Chess artist, but Leonard Chess bought most of the Premium masters after the failure. After a year with Mercury Records, Slim signed with United Records in Chicago; the A&R man, Lew Simpkins, knew him from Miracle and Premium. The timing was propitious, because he had just added Matt “Guitar” Murphy to his group. He remained with United through the end of 1954, when the company began to cut back on blues recording. Slim’s next steady relationship with a record company had to wait until 1958, when he was picked up by Vee-Jay. In 1959 his band, still featuring Matt “Guitar” Murphy, cut LP Memphis Slim at the Gate of the Horn, which featured a lineup of his best known songs, including “Mother Earth,” “Gotta Find My Baby,” “Rockin’ the Blues,” ‘Steppin’ Out,” and “Slim’s Blues.” Slim first appeared outside the United States in 1960, touring with Willie Dixon, with whom he returned to Europe in 1962 as a featured artist in the first of the series of American Folk Festival concerts organized by Dixon and promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau. Willie Dixon brought many notable blues artists to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. The duo released several albums together on Folkways Records, including, Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon at the Village Gate with Pete Seeger, in 1962. That same year, he moved permanently to Paris and his engaging personality and well-honed presentation of playing, singing, and storytelling about the blues secured his position as the most prominent blues artist for nearly three decades. He appeared on television in numerous European countries, acted in several French films and wrote the score for another, and performed regularly in Paris, throughout Europe, and on return visits to the United States. In the last years of his life, he teamed up with respected jazz drummer George Collier. The two toured Europe together and became friends. After Collier died in August 1987, Slim appeared in public very few times. Two years before his death, Slim was named a Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of France. In addition, the U.S. Senate honored Slim with the title of Ambassador-at-Large of Good Will. Memphis Slim died on February 24, 1988, of renal failure in Paris, France, at the age of 72. He is buried at Galilee Memorial Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1989, he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame”
Review – Another Craft remastering CD, and it is a good one. Probably one of the best albums to me of Memphis Slim. Originally released in 1959, this is an amazing time capsule of some of the best musicians at the time, heading off with Memphis Slim, incredible voice and keys, the amazing Matt Guitar Murphy at his best, incredible. Also with this group is Bill Stepney on Drums, Sam Chatmon on Bass, and Alex Atkin, John Calvin and Earnest Cotton on Sax. Another CD that there are only perfection, hard to pull out favorites but I think my favorite is “Mother Earth″, listen here. I will give this a 10+ on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Furry Lewis – Back On My Feet Again (Craft)
Bio – “Walter “Furry” Lewis (1893– 1981) personified the relaxed and intimate character of the early blues. A master of multiple guitar techniques, he was most notably an impressive bottleneck guitarist who echoed his vocal phrasings with an expressive set of sliding notes. He was able to give his performances a spontaneity, subtlety, and feeling that made him, in the words of blues historian Sam Charters, one of “only a handful of singers [of his era] with the creative ability to use the blues as an expression of personal emotion.” According to most sources, Lewis was born March 6, 1893, in Greenwood, in the Mississippi delta. Around the turn of the century Lewis’ family moved the hundred and fifty or so miles upriver to Memphis, Tennessee. The boy his friends and family called “Furry” (for some long forgotten reason) grew up in an atmosphere charged with the energy of nascent African American musics. It was an era in which ragtime and the first incarnations of jazz met the folk songs of Appalachia and the spiritual and “work song” vocal traditions of former slaves. The intersection of these forms created a diverse and vibrant cultural landscape in the Southern USA, as migrations of rural agricultural laborers spread what were once regional musics far beyond their initial origins. The city of Memphis, and the Beale Street neighborhood in particular, developed an almost mythical status as a musical mecca. In a time when recorded music was rare, Beale Street served as a kind of marketplace for music and musicians, where performers of various styles and techniques could go to inspire, and be inspired. It was this climate that nurtured the young Furry Lewis’ talent, exposing him to the repertoire and techniques that he would eventually make his own. Influenced by the fiercely emotive styles of early Memphis blues, which typically involved stories of heartache sung by solitary, working class men, Lewis began performing at house parties, fish fries, dances, and other gatherings, becoming popular with both black and white audiences. As his popularity as a local performer grew, Lewis began to travel around the South, often with itinerant “medicine shows” that included him in vaudeville acts. Paying a respectable $2 a night, these shows developed his talents as a performer, and taught him a number of guitar and vocal styles that would later define his unique musical inflection. After the shows (which usually ended before midnight), a world of juke joints, speakeasies, and late night parties provided ample opportunities for a young Furry Lewis to play more and improve his art. In 1917, while trying to hop onto a moving train, Lewis slipped and fell underneath. The accident nearly killed him and led to the amputation of his leg. Though forced by the accident to wear a prosthesis for the rest of his life, it proved a minor setback to his musical career, and he continued gigging around the South throughout the early 1920s. As the first blues records by artists like Mamie Smith filtered southward from the urban black populations of Chicago and New York, the so called country blues of the Mississippi delta began to stand out in contrast. The singers of “country blues” distinguished themselves from these original “city blues” artists with a less repetitive and more fluid structure and the improvisatory freedoms of singer guitar instrumentation. By 1924, the Chicago based Paramount Record Company began to take interest in this style, and recorded the first examples of the genre. In 1927, Furry Lewis traveled to Chicago and recorded twelve songs for the Vocalion label between May and October. After returning to Memphis, he laid down twelve more cuts for the Vocalion and Victor labels between August 1928 and September 1929. Many of these recordings were later collected on Furry Lewis In His Prime (Yazoo 1050). In addition, the two part “Kassie Jones” he recorded in 1928 was included on Folkways Records’ Anthology of American Folk Music. Though these records display a masterful grasp of the blues, Lewis’ early recordings faded slowly into relative obscurity, compounded by the woes of the Depression that made life as a traveling musician increasingly difficult, and ultimately impossible, to sustain. Around 1930, Lewis took a job with the City of Memphis, working odd jobs as a laborer and effectively retiring from the professional music scene, although he did play the occasional party. By the time he was located by Sam Charters in early 1959, Lewis no longer owned a guitar. Charters relates the story behind his “rediscovery” and recording of Lewis that year in the liner notes of Folkways Records’ Furry Lewis (FW03823), the album that resulted from their meeting. Though he hadn’t played much in well over twenty years, Lewis sounds undiminished, and reveals the brilliance that defined his early career. As Charters describes, “A great blues singer brings to his music an emotion and imagination that doesn’t depend on technical display. As singers mature their music often achieves a new expressiveness.” Lewis maintained his expert ability to improvise his musical performance and expressive technique to reflect the emotion of the moment’s quintessential elements of the rural blues. Charters observes, “Rather than trying to remember a carefully worked out arrangement, he simply uses whatever verses and musical styles suit the mood he is building.” Lewis’ deft application of “slide” and “Hawaiian” guitar techniques allows him to manipulate the blues over a number of different styles, depending on the mood. The slide style in particular lies at the heart of Lewis’ musical freedom, providing a second melodic voice to complement his own. By sliding an implement (often a pocket knife or bottleneck) along the higher strings, while leaving lower strings in an “open” tuning, he achieved a vocabulary through which the guitar could augment the expressiveness of a song. As Charters’ recordings gained notoriety and interest grew in early rural blues as a commercially viable music, Furry Lewis began a second career, recording and touring again, and releasing two full length albums, Back on my Feet Again and Done Changed My Mind in 1961. He toured during the 1970s as the opening act for rock musician Leon Russell. He also toured with a traveling rock ensemble group called the Alabama State Troupers, who packaged differing styles of music mixed with rock. Joni Mitchell’s song “Furry Sings the Blues” was written after a visit to Lewis’ rooming house in Memphis during the 1970s. Before his death, in 1981, Lewis had also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1974, and in the Burt Reynolds film WW & The Dixie Dance Kings in 1975. In 1973 he was named an Honorary Colonel of the State of Tennessee, an honor also bestowed upon such legendary performers as Duke Ellington and Elvis Presley. Even after his death, Furry Lewis’ music would influence a new generation of artists who remained true to the emotional purity of the early blues. His unique style endures as a superb example of the ability of these seminal musicians to translate raw emotion into a potent and vital art. As Charters perceptively describes, “To hear fully the subtlety in Furry’s singing is to gain an insight not only into the singer, but into the creative process of the blues itself.””
Review – Craft has done it again, remastered one of the best – Furry Lewis. It sounds so clear and captures the faint little inflections of Furry’s voice and Guitar. All the music is so iconic Furry, that it is hard to find a favorite, but some that stood out were “Shake Em On Down”, “John Henry” and “I’m Going To Brownsville” but I think my favorite is “Old Blue″, listen here. I will give this a 10+ on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Long Tall Deb & Colin John – Light It Up (Vizztone)
Bio – “Like many blues and soul vocalists of note, “Long Tall Deb” Landolt cultivated her soul/gospel honey-dipped voice in church as a child. Her debut “Raise Your Hands” gained heavy rotation on Sirius/XM’s“Bluesville” and garnered attention both for her soulful vocal dynamics and songwriting: owing a lot to her Texas/Mexico border roots. Transpacific Bluesman Colin John received his early touring miles with Teeny Hodges, Little Mike and The Tornadoes, Henry Grey, Pinetop Perkins, Michael Hill, Hubert Sumlin, Phil Guy, Big Jack Johnson, and Gary Brooker of Procol Harum. Their one-of-a-kind sound incorporates a solid bedrock of blues and soul sensibilities cross-pollinated with their respective deep roots in Texas and Hawai’i and topped with world roots influences gleaned from their travels throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and the Pacific. Film and TV soundtrack credits include TNT’s “Good Behavior” and indie film “Contrast”.”
Review – I wasn’t sure what to expect for this album, but I really like it. Most of the inhouse written songs on this CD usually have some statement on the world today (not usually a fan of this writing) but the covers is where the meat is on this album! Lots of great music though, Colin John plays a variety of instruments including Guitar, Lap Steel and Sitar just to name a few, the rest of the band includes Chris Butler on Bass and Drums, Jason Edwards on Drums, Pascal Fouquet on Guitar, Alastair Greene on Guitar, Steve Marriner on Harp and Zac Var on Drums. Stand outs for me were “Spoonful”, “Light It Up” and “Out For A Rip” but I think my favorite is “Sweet Dreams″, an Annie Lennox Tune, very well done, listen here. I will give this a 9 on Blues Content and a 9 on Music Content.
Kim Field and the Perfect Gentlemen – Don’t Need But One (Self Produced)
Bio – “As a musician I work primarily with my band, The Perfect Gentlemen. I have toured internationally and performed at such showcases as the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Bumbershoot Festival, and the Waterfront Blues Festival. Over the years I have appeared on bills with such rhythm and blues legends as Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Cray, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Gregg Allman, James Cotton, Otis Rush, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, the Righteous Brothers, Walter Horton, and Big Mama Thornton. I also work as a writer. I am the co-author of the book The Blues Dream of Billy Boy Arnold, published by the University of Chicago Press. I am also the author of the book Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers: The History of the People’s Instrument, published by Cooper Square Press. I have written for several publications, including The Village Voice, The Encylopedia of Country Music, Blues Review Magazine, The Journal of Country Music, and The Seattle Weekly.”
Review – Great CD! Strong vocals, but the band is where the gold is. Strong horn section, and Kim Field can really play the Harp!! The band backing Kim is Whit Draper on Guitar, Denny Bixby on Bass, Jimi Bott on Drums, Louis Pain on organ and the horn section consists of Joe McCarthy on Trumpet, Chris Mercer on Tenor Sax and Rob Rayfield on Bariton Sax. Included on this CD is Vyasa Dodson of the Insomniacs on Vocals and Guitar for a couple of songs. This band feels big band West Coast Blues to me. Lots to like here but “I Give In”, “Dress The Monkey” and “So Dark In Here” stood out to my ears. I think my favorite is “What Kind Of Fool″, this one was sung, written and guitar played on by Vyasa, listen here. I will give this a 10 on Blues Content and a 9 on Music Content.
