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Friday, March 21, 2008
KILL IT KID
Blind Willie McTell
Atlanta Twelve String
Atlantic : 1949
[Buy It]
Someone once asked me if the reason I wrote was that I couldn't sing. "Sometimes it seems like you'd rather be a singer," she said. "But you do your best." I rolled away from her and faced the other way in bed. It hurt my feelings: not the part about why I wrote, but the part about not being able to sing. If I had been smarter, or quicker, or happier, or older, I would have said that she had hit the nail on the head, gotten up, put on a record, gone back to bed, and done my best. That record would have been "Kill It Kid."Labels: ben, blues
posted by Ben
LINK |
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
ALABAMA BOOGIE
John Lee
Federal : 1951
Available on: Rural Blues vol. 1 1934-1956
Document : 1995
[Buy It]
ALABAMA MAN
Earl Scott
Chascamp c. 1960 (?)
Available on: Nashville Rockabilly
Stomper Time : 2004
[Buy It]
THE STORY OF ALABAMA BOUND
Jelly Roll Morton & Alan Lomax
c. 1938
Available on: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings
Rounder : 2005
[Buy It]
Welcome, folks, to Alabama!
The great state of Alabam' is the 'bammiest state there is. Established in 1973, Alabama was desert until a creek run through, and didn't that desert turn verdant with pasture and slaves? These days, Alabama folk live peacefully and know there never was much to worry about.
ALABAMA
The Blue Sky Boys
RCA : 1949
Available on: The Blue Sky Boys
JSP : 2007
[Buy It]
ALABAMA LULLABY
The Delmore Brothers
Columbia : 1931
Available on: Classic Cuts: 1933-1941
JSP : 2004
[Buy It]
AUTOMOBILE RIDE THROUGH ALABAMA
Red Henderson
OKeh : 1928
Available on: The Roots of Rap
Yazoo : 1996
[Buy It]
Still, people is people, and Alabama people have stories to tell. Stories about apple trees, space men, bull frogs and the sometimes mistreatment of peoples. Up in Chicago, J.B. Lenoir had some mean things to say about the way white folks treated the black folks down in Alabama, and up in Chicago he wasn't afraid to sing about it -
ALABAMA
J. B. Lenoir
Alabama Blues
L& R : 1965
[Buy It]
and sing about it -
ALABAMA (LIVE)
J.B. Lenoir
Home Recording (with Willie Dixon) : 1962
Available on: One of These Mornings
JSP : 2003
[Buy It]
and sing about it some more -
 ALABAMA (LIVE)
('bout 7.5 minutes in)
Like Skip James' "Washington D. C. Hospital Center Blues," the song "Alabama," by J. B. Lenoir, is a last gasp of the old, acoustic country blues. But "Washington D. C. Hospital Center Blues" is a spider-web of a song; "Alabama" is a mighty gasp. Born in Mississippi, Lenoir recorded in and around Chicago for over a decade, but never broke through to a national audience. By 1967, he was working as a dishwasher a the U. of Illinois Champaign campus; he died of heart attack that year, at the age of thirty-eight. The last, unrecorded song he wrote went like this:Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
Something got a hold of me
it must be the Lord
I can't sing right, I can't play right
I can't walk right, I can't talk right
I can't eat right, I can't sleep right
I can't do nothing at all. According to the liner notes I'm looking at, "J.B.'s autopsy revealed that blood from his heart was backing up into his abdomen. His family settled a wrongful death suit against a driver who had hit his car from the rear [three weeks earlier] for $2250. After the lawyers and the court got paid, there was a little over $1,400 for the Lenoir family." Across the pond, in England, John Mayall recorded this eulogy for Lenoir; you can see more of Lenoir on YouTube here, here, and here.
But that's neither here nor there (big love to the Heart of Dixie!) except insofar as "Alabama" by J. B. Lenoir always did strike me as one of the more politically-minded records of the sixties; just a few years earlier, you could stick a microphone in front of any old bluesman, ask all about the hard times, and get no reference to any mistreatments whatsoever:
MONOLOGUE ON ACCIDENTS
Alan Lomax & Blind Willie McTell
The Library of Congress Recordings
c. 1940; first released in 1969
Document : 1995
[Buy It]
Given all this history, it's not surprising that some of the ways folks in Alabama get along is by drinkin':
I AIN'T A BIT DRUNK
George Roark
c. 1938
Availbale on: Kentucky Mountain Music
Yazoo : 2003
[Buy It]
Workin':
OLD ALABAMA
Artists Unknown (Recorded by Alan Lomax)
Negro Prison Blues and Songs
Legacy Intl. : 1994
[Buy It]
And singin' about movin' to Alabama:
GOING TO MOVE TO ALABAMA
Charley Patton
Paramount : 1930
Available on: Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues
Revenant : 2003
[Buy It]
If you're thinking of moving to Alabama, you'll want to print this handy map out. Keep it in your glove compartment. And those of you without a glove compartment, take heart: Alabama is also a fairyland where no one else can enter, and your every valuable is always safe:
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
Billie Holiday
Verve : 1957
Available on: The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve 1945-1959
Polygram : 1993
[Buy It]
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
Art Tatum
c. 1955
Available on: The Tatum Group Masterpieces vol. 4
Pablo : 1991
[Buy It]
STARS FELL ON ALABAMA
The Mountain Goats
Nine Black Poppies
3 Beads of Sweat : 1995
[Buy It]Labels: alex, blues, country, geography, jazz, old-timey
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, December 31, 2007
WHAT TIME IS IT?
The Jive Five
Beltone : 1962
Available on: Our True Story
Ace : 1991
[Buy It]
I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS
Roland Kirk Quartet
Mercury : 1962
Available on: Rahsaan: The Complete Mercury Recordings
Polygram : 1990
[Buy It]
TIME FOR EVERYTHING
Ed Pauling & The Exciters
Federal : 1965
Available on: The "5" Royales : Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
Percy Mayfield
Specialty : 1950
Available on: Poet of The Blues
Specialty : 1990
[Buy It]
PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE
James Booker
Keyboard King of New Orleans
c. 1976 (JSP Reissue : 2005)
[Buy It]
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
The "5" Royales
Federal : 1960
Available on: Catch That Teardrop : The Best of the Home of the Blues 1950-1954 Sessions (Plus the Complete Federal & Savoy Recordings of El Pauling & Royal Abbit)
Ace : 2007
[Buy It]
I CRIED ALL NIGHT LONG
Harvey Sims
Art Rosenbaum Field Recording : 1991
The Art of Field Recording Vol. 1
Dust to Digital : 2007
[Buy It]
TO LOVE SOMEONE (WHO DON'T LOVE YOU)
The Kaldirons
Twinight : 1970
Available on: Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Midnight Rotation
Numero Group : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR, BABY
The Johnny Otis Orchestra
Excelsior : 1947
[Buy It]
MEADOWLANDS
Nancy Jacobs & Her Sisters
Quality : 1955
Available on: The History of Township Music
Wrasse : 2001
[Buy It]
YOU'RE ALL I NEED TO GET BY (TAKE 2)
Aretha Franklin
Atlantic : 1970
Available on: Rare & Unreleased Recordings from The Golden Reign of The Queen of Soul
Atlantic : 2007
[Buy It]
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Lightnin' Hopkins
Decca : 1963
Available on: Blue Yule: Christmas Blues and R&B Classics
Rhino : 1991
[Buy It]
THIS TIME ANOTHER YEAR YOU MAY BE GONE
Rev. Edward Claybor
Vocalion : 1928
Available on: American Primitive vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36)
Revenant : 1997
[Buy It]
NOBODY'S BUSINESS
Joe Harris & Kid West
Available on: Field Recordings, vol. 5: Louisiana, Texas, Bahamas 1933-1940
Document : 1998
[Buy It]
The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. ~W.H. Auden
NEW YEAR'S PARTY
Blowfly
Weird World 12" : 1980
Available on: The Worst of Blowfly
Hot : 1996
[Buy It]
Happy new year to you and yours, from Ben, Brian, James, Joanna, Alex, and the extended Moistworks family!
AULD LANG SYNE
Jimi Hendrix
Live @ The Fillmore : January 1, 1970
Courtesy of: WFMU's Beware of the Blog
[Unreleased]Labels: african, alex, blues, doo-wop, gospel, holidays, jazz, rhythm and blues, soul
posted by Alex
LINK |
Friday, August 17, 2007
NERVOUS MAN NERVOUS
Big Jay McNeely
1953
Available on : The King R&B Box Set
King : 1996
[Buy it]
I'M SO GLAD
Skip James
Today!
Vanguard : 1964
[Buy it]
I'M SO GLAD
Iggy & The Stooges
1973
Available on : Wild Love: The Detroit Rehearsals and More
Bomp : 2001
[Buy it]
SO GLAD
Howlin' Wolf
1956
Available on : Ain't Gonna Be Your Dog
Universal : 1994
[Buy it]
SO GLAD
Fats Domino
1963
Available on : Out of New Orleans
Bear Family : 1993
[Buy it]
HAPPY BOYS HAPPY
Small Faces
Small Faces
Immediate : 1967
[Buy it]
Big Jay McNeely was a jazz saxophonist in the late forties before he headed off for the riskier, raunchier world of R&B. He hit number one on the R&B charts with the instrumental "Deacon's Hop" in 1949 and was quickly crowned king of the "honking sax" style. More hits followed, including "Nervous Man Nervous," and after retiring from the music business in the early sixties, McNeely enjoyed a comeback in the eighties and nineties. (There's one story, possibly apocryphal, about how he was playing at the Quasimodo Club in West Berlin the night the Berlin Wall came down, and how the German press called him "the modern Joshua" for blowing down the wall.)
I mention McNeely because he was on my mind yesterday, when my older son, who is six, went on a field trip with his summer camp. It's not the first field trip. He has been to Coney Island, to the Staten Island Children's Museum. He's been bowling. I have lost track of all the trips, in fact. Maybe one time they went to Belmont Park and each were given $10 to bet? But then, Wednesday night, I came home and saw the announcement sitting on the counter. It said "Rye Playland."
I had a strange reaction to it. I became nervous and even afraid. The fear wasn't severe, and I'm not even sure it was my own. It may have been an echo of my wife's--she gets that way more often, and she was standing nearby, giving off high levels of Afraidiation. Whatever the reason, I got a little anxious. Partly this was because Rye Playland is further than the other places he's gone. Partly this was because I remembered that earlier this year, a 21-year-old woman was killed in an accident involving the Mind Scrambler, and that the news reports of that death made mention of an earlier death, from 2004, of a young girl. But the rational part of my mind got to the fearful part in a hurry and smothered it with a blanket. Two accidents in four years is sad, but is it a high rate? How many people go through the park in a year? Besides, little kids aren't going on the Mind Scrambler.
The fear, which was ridiculous, receded while I was awake. When I was asleep, it surged. I dreamed that I was with my family in an apartment somewhere. We were leaving to go outside. My wife and younger son went out the door, but my older son wouldn't listen. He went into the bathroom. I followed him in, ready to yell, and found him standing in the middle of the bathroom, staring upward at dozens of fresh corpses hung by meathooks from the ceiling. I woke up immediately. Not comforting at all. I have already written about the idea of fear, but I should add that I'm rarely fearful. When I was a kid, I liked climbing up to the roof and walking around, or going to the top of the tallest tree. Every once in a while, I'd fall the entire height of the thing. It scraped me up, but it didn't scare me. Once, some years ago, before 9/11, my wife and I were flying from Miami to New York and had horrendous turbulence that lasted almost an hour. The woman behind me was screaming "Jesus, no!" for about twenty minutes. It put me off flying for a year but it went away.
So all of this is to say that fear is foreign to me for the most part, and that I don't know what to do with it when it arrives. Work yesterday was smooth but the ice was thin. When my son got back from the dreaded Playland in one piece, with stories about candy and other kids and rides and candy -- a high percentage involved candy-- I was unpredictably glad. So glad that I went and tried to find a song to explain to myself how glad I was. What I found, for the most part, were songs by classic blues singers who decided to set aside their money trouble, girl trouble, health trouble, floods, death, and nobody's dirty business to celebrate life. They lay off of what Hubert Sumlin called "sad blues" and opt instead for what he called "glad blues." And that's the word they tend to use, "glad," instead of "happy," which makes sense -- happy can just happen to you, but glad is, generally, a result. Glad is how you feel when it turns out that the things you were worried about weren't worth worrying about. Glad has, either explicit or implied, an element of relief.
So how glad was I, according to the giants of glad blues? As glad as Skip James in "I'm So Glad," which was originally recorded in 1931, revisited by James after his rediscovery in the sixties, covered famously by Cream and somewhat less famously by Iggy and the Stooges. As glad as Howlin' Wolf in "So Glad," which was the B-side of "I Asked for Water." As glad as Muddy Waters in "I'm So Glad I'm Living" or Sleepy John Estes in "I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More." I was as glad as all those songs, but I was exactly as glad as Fats Domino in "So Glad," a little-known but reliably irrepressible specimen of the classic New Orleans sound:
Well I'm so glad my baby's coming home
Don't know what to do
I'm so glad my baby's coming home
All of my troubles are through Labels: ben, blues, rock
posted by Ben
LINK |
Monday, May 21, 2007
NASTY DAN
Johnny Cash
The Johnny Cash Children's Album
Columbia : 1975
[Buy It]
RED HOT DAN
Thomas Waller with Morris's Hot Babies
c. 1927
Available on: Fats Waller and his Friends
RCA : 1992
[Buy It]
DANNY'S DREAM
Jeanne Newman
Available on: Memphis Belles: The Women of Sun Records
Bear Family : 2002
[Buy It]
MIDNIGHT DAN
Julia Moody & Her Dixie Wablers
Available on: Tight Women & Loose Bands: 1921-1931
Louisiana Music Factory : 2000
[Buy It]
DAN THE BANANA MAN
Nettle Brothers String Band
Bluebird : 1938
Available on: Tulsa Twist: Stompin' Singers & Western Swingers
Proper : 1999
[Buy It]
DANNY SAYS
Tom Waits
Orphans, Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards
ANTI : 2006
[Buy It]
HUSTLIN' DAN
Bessie Smith
Columbia : 1930
Available on: 1929-1933
Allegro : 1998
[Buy It]
ROLLIN' DANNY
The Fall
This Nation's Saving Grace
Beggars UK : 1985
[Buy It]
&
LONE STAR : KINKY FRIEDMAN ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
by Dan Halpern
The New Yorker : 2006Labels: alex, blues, jazz, rock, rockabilly, western swing
posted by Alex
LINK |
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Here's a nice quote about love:
Love: we are those beings who must, at all times, give our all. To be decieved has no real meaning for us, for we act under immense pressure and the object has the sole functionof unleashing this. Thus we are as naive as children when it comes to judging the loved one. Even when a lover only desires flirtation and a touch of sentiment we are so dazzled that we want to give her everything - our very soul. We are ridiculous, but for good reason.
- Robert Musil, Diaries 1899-1944
And a few tracks from the mix cd I'm working on:
I'M STANDING IN THE SHADOWS
The 5 Royals
Todd 7" : 1963
[Criminally Out of Print]
THAT'S HOW I FEEL
The Soul Clan (Solomon Burke, Arthur Conley, Joe Tex, Ben E. King, Don Covay)
Soul Meeting
Atlantic : c. 1968
Available on: Atlantic Unearthed: Soul Brothers
Atlantic : 2006
[Buy It]
WHEN YOU TOUCH ME
The Reigning Sound
Too Much Guitar
In The Bed Records : 2004
[Buy It]
PEGGY
Toots & The Maytals
BMN 7" : 1965
Available on: Pressure Drop The Definitive Collection
Trojan : 2005
[Buy It]
LOVE POTION #9
The Coasters
The Coasters on Broadway
King : 1973
[Even More Criminally Out of Print]/Courtesy of Soul Sides
CRIMSON & CLOVER
The Uniques
Available on: The Best of Slim Smith & The Uniques 1967-1969
Trojan US : 2003
[Buy It]
A TASTE OF HONEY (LIVE)
James Booker
Spiders on the Keys: Live at the Maple Leaf Bar
Rounder : 1993
[Buy It]
(THE LOVE I SAW IN YOU WAS) JUST A MIRAGE
The Uniques
Available on: The Best of Slim Smith & The Uniques 1967-1969
Trojan US : 2003
[Buy It]
SEARCHING THE DESERT FOR THE BLUES
Blind Willie McTell
Available on: The Best of Blind Willie McTell
Yazoo : 2004
[Buy It]
GOODBYE BOOZE
The Delmore Brothers
Available on: Classic Cuts 1933-1941
JSP : 2004
[Buy It]
FUEL FOR LOVE
Wrinkers Experience
Available on : EMI Super Hits
EMI Nigeria : c. the early '70s
[Out of Print]/Also courtesy of Soul Sides
There's no theme yet, except that a few friends are getting married this year, so it's pretty heavy on the love songs. And not all of the squares are in place, but a few of these songs - Crimson & Clover, Love Potion # 9, James Booker's Rachmaninov- flavored Taste of Honey - will make it on by dint of their awesomeness. So this is more or less what I've been walking around in the sunshine listening to. And now, in entirely unrelated (but somewhat more timely) news:
FIDEL CASTRO
Lord Invader
Calypso Travels
Folkways : 1959
[Buy It]Labels: african, alex, bluegrass, blues, calypso, reggae, soul, soul/garage-core
posted by Alex
LINK |
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
THE DYIN' CRAPSHOOTER'S BLUES
Blind Willie McTell
Last Session
Prestige : 1960
[Buy It]
DEAL RAG
Walter Taylor
Gennett : 1930
Available on: American Primitives Vol. II
Revenant : 2005
[Buy It]
GRANDMA PLAYS THE NUMBERS
Wynonie Harris
King : 1949
Available on: Bloodshot Eyes
Rhino : 1994
[Buy It]
SPORT
THE BONES FLY FROM SPOON'S HANDS
FOUR BITCHES IS WHAT I GOT
Lightnin' Rod
Hustler's Convention
Celluloid Records : 1973
[Buy It]
Brian's taking a sick day today, so we thought we'd post some songs for Megan's dad....Labels: alex, blues, rhythm and blues
posted by Alex
LINK |
Monday, September 25, 2006
DOWN ON ME
Eddie Head and His Family
Columbia : 1930
Available on: American Primitive v.1
Revenant : 1997
[Buy It]
Janis Joplin: the greatest white blues singer of her generation or minstrel show train wreck? Here are some of the "obscure soul classics that Joplin made her own" (thank you, Rolling Stone).
CRY BABY
Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters
United Artists : 1963
Available on: Cry Baby
Collectables : 1991
[Buy It]
GET IT WHILE YOU CAN
Howard Tate
Get It While You Can
Verve : 1967
Reissued: Hip-O : 2004
[Buy It]
PIECE OF MY HEART
Erma Franklin
Shout : 1967
Available on: Golden Classics
Collectables : 1994
[Buy It]
TRY (JUST A LITTLE BIT HARDER)
Lorraine Ellison
Loma : 1968
Available on: The Best of Loma Records
WEA : 1995
[Buy It]
Assessments of Joplin's soul power vary. I'm not a hater, per se: her version of "Summertime" is one of my favorites and that's saying something. But I saw this House of Blues (shudder) compilation called "Songs of Janis Joplin," and it's got Etta James and Syl Johnson covering songs that Joplin had covered. And that just felt so wrong. (Since when is "Trouble in Mind" Joplin's song? These people are crazy, them and their blues for tourists.)
Then again, when you listen to Big Mama Thornton, who, unlike the artists above, is not known for her subtlety and restraint, you can see what Joplin was going for. I think she does a fair approximation of Big Mama, actually. Except for Big Mama being able to sing and all.
BALL AND CHAIN
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
Available on: Vanguard: Roots of the Blues
Vanguard : 2002
[Buy It]
Big Mama's also the kind of blues that's popular in Chicago, the kind I don't particularly like. I'm kind of burnt out on blistering guitar solos and I'm definitely over that whole Blues Brothers palookas-with-saxophones aesthetic. You know?
Still undecided? Check Janis on youtube.
Down on Me
Cry Baby
Try
Piece of My Heart
Summertime
Ball and ChainLabels: blues, megan
posted by Megan
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