Charlie Musselwhite, One Night In America, Telarc CD-83547
Luther Allison, Bad News Is Coming, Motown Records 440-013-407-2
John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Bluesbreakers: John Mayall & Eric Clapton, Deram 422-882-967-2
Freddie King, Ultimate Collection, Hip-O Records 314-520-909-2
Muddy Waters, Fathers And Sons, MCA Records 088-112-648-2
Buddy Guy, The Best of Buddy Guy, MCA/Chess Records 088-112-736-2
Tinsley EllisHell Or High Waterv
Telarc CD-83531
Open a can of stiff-fried southern rock, throw in a Memphis R & B mentality, chunk in some strong blues stock and simmer with a little funky soul and you get a picture of Tinsley Ellis’ musical approach. A guitarist and songwriter, Tinsley makes this his tenth album, and his seventh as a solo performer. The Atlanta born Ellis built a consistent, hard-charging reputation on previous outings on Landslide, Alligator, and most recently the now-out-of-business, Capricorn Records. This first release on the Telarc label continues his musical maturation with confidence and an obvious axe mastery!
Working to backup the sessions is the engine room of bassist Phillip Skipper and drummer Scott Callison. The versatile Kevin McKendree plays the organ and piano, the rhythm guitar lines fall to Kenny Kilgore, and diggin’ deep for the background vox is Donna Hopkins. Tinsley’s lead guitars and vocals stand high above with such buttressing.
You’ll hear Tinsley’s rock-hardened approach step out on the opening title tune, “Hell Or High Water". The high-stepping gait of “Hooked” is infectious, and the haunting wah-wahhed guitar of “Mystery To Me” makes the unrequited love song dynamic. In the same vein, the six-minute “Stuck In Love” comes in as a soft tempoed, but emotive ballad stacked with sweet six-strung solos and a tortured vocal character. The passion abounds throughout cuts like the moving “Real Bad Way”, the axe-fired “All I Can Do”, or the deep blues-based and eight-minute “Feel No Pain”.
Hear “Ten Year Day” rush through your speakers like a freight train and then settle back and let the closer, “Set Love Free”, take you out on a softer half-acoustic journey. Tinsley shows his versatile grasp of styles all through this disc, which may prove to be his finest outing. Ellis’ fans will love this, while new listeners will be equally charmed and seduced. Tinsley’s musical road has only become wider and will definitely be more traveled with this platter added to his body of work. Mark A. Cole
Telarc International Corp.; 23307 Commerce Park Drive; Cleveland, Ohio 44122: or, www.telarc.com
Charlie MusselwhiteOne Night In America
Telarc CD-83547
Open that Memphis pressure cooker that took white and black music under the guises and blessed by the shades of hillbilly, country, blues and R & B, and you get the rooty rock and roll era that produced the musical profile of a younger Charlie Musselwhite. The Kosciusko, Mississippi native Musselwhite moves back in time on this biscuit to bring an Americana leaning to his standard Delta/Chicago and West Coast blues formulas.
Joining Charlie is an outstanding cast of supporting sessionists and special guests. Bandleader phenom G.E. Smith leads on guitars. The rhythm section is drummers supreme Pers Hanson or Michael Jerome, along with thundering bass man T-Bone Wolk. Running the middle ground is organist Peter Re. Special guests include guitarist Robben Ford, and Marty Stuart on mandolin and guitar. Kelly Willis and Christine Ohlman share lead and background vocal duties, both separately and together on seven of the twelve slabs on this platter.
You know you’re honky-tonkin’ when Charlie whips it up with the opening “Trail Of Tears”. With a country vocal take and a bluesy shuffle that segues right into the following melancoly of Ivory Joe Hunter’s “Cold Grey Light Of Dawn”. His own “Blues Overtook Me” sets a tight pace with incredible register work by Charlie. Willis’ shares the lead vocals on “In A Town This Size” making it an especially-sweetened country ballad. This slant also brings Charlie to a romping rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” with a decided country-fried rock feel. The set mixes it up with clever cover selections like Jimmy Reed’s “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby” and the Los Lobos tune “One Time One Night”, and four from Charlie’s own hand and pen.
Bringing his past 1940s’ and 1950s’ Memphis influences into play with deliberate intention: Charlie expands on his credo: “...blues is a feeling not confined to any theoretical musical structure.” A riveting listen from start to finish, One Night In America adds frosting to a string of releases starting with Vanguard, going on to Paramount, Kicking Mule, Capitol, Arhoolie, Alligator, Paramount, and Pointblank. This Musselwhite debut on Telarc brings it all together: his Mississippi birthright, his Memphis and Chicago upbringings, and his current Bay Area life facet. More than just another gem in his discographic crown, Charlie steps forth with moving eclectic music that further expands the boundaries of the blues! Mark A. Cole
Telarc International Corp.; 23307 Commerce Park Drive; Cleveland, Ohio 44122: or, www.telarc.com
Luther AllisonBad News Is Coming
Motown Records 440-013-407-2
This is a reissue of Luther’s first album for Motown Records, originally released in 1972, and it is packed further with four previously unreleased bonus cuts from the same recording sessions. The Gordy label snagged Allison for three albums. The Arkansas-born guitarist had cut his teeth on the fervent West Side Chicago proving grounds. Having waxed with Delmark, Allison settled with Motown for three then-underappreciated albums. Despite the raw emotive blues and scorching axe action found on Bad News .., it never brought the national attention that Luther deserved. Now posthumously, it is recognized as classic material.
Joining Luther for these Hitsville sessions were Paul White on the piano; Ray Goodman at the second guitar spot; and Garfield Angove at the harmonica spot. Laying down the hard bottoms is bassist and drummer Andrew Smith. The effort was produced by Joe Peraino, and this material has been digitally remastered by Suha Gur.
Ripping out into Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” and “Evil Is Going On”, Luther busts loose with tremendous picking and sustain. Conquering the B.B. King “Rock Me Baby”, Allison also strokes his blues-rock attack through Mel London’s “Cut You A-Loose”, and Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom”. His own “Bad News Is Coming” comes across with a foreboding forcefulness. The four bonus cuts include a sterling instrumental rendition of Freddy King’s “The Stumble”, an effervescent take on “Sweet Home Chicago, a blisteringly blue version of his “It’s Been A Long Time”, and the rolling closer, “Take My Love (I Want To Give It All To You)”.
A highly captivating reissue capitalizing on Allison at his prime. Unfazed by popular British influences of the era, but resoundingly captivating a blues rock feel, Luther had all the right moves. Not till his repatriation in the mid-1990s did Luther recieve the attention that was obviously due him back when this was originally issued. This is only a further reinforcement of his musical legend and largess. Make sure you hear this! Mark A. Cole
Motown Record Company LP; 1755 Broadway; New York, NY 10019: UMG; 2220 Colorado Ave.; Santa Monica, CA 90404: or , www.umusic.com
John Mayall & The BluesbreakersBluesbreakers: John Mayall With Eric Clapton
Deram 422-882-967-2
The seminal album, originally released in 1966, established John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers as the leading blues-rock exponent of the British Invasion. It is here reissued with the addition of two bonus sides by Mayall and Clapton cut in 1967. The only album for the Bluesbreakers that captured the short tenure of Eric Clapton in the band, it also propelled Clapton to further success in his next musical venture; Cream.
Clapton had left the Yardbirds over stylistic differences, but his stay with The Bluesbreakers afforded him a holistically-creative blues experience. With Mayall handling the keyboard action and harmonica co-leads, Clapton stretched out for some of the most influenced and influential blues of his own career. Providing the professional backdrop for the young Clapton to play his favored Chicago blues formulas, Mayall and The Bluesbreakers also at this time included John McVie on the electric bass, and Hughie Flint on the drumkit. Horn players on these sessions were John Almond, Alan Skidmore, and Dennis Healey.
Classically enduring, this set opens with Otis Rush’s “All Your Love”, a inferno of cascading riffs and thundering rhythms that cut right to the chase. Other classic redos include Freddie King’s “Hideaway”, Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say”, Mose Allison’s “Parchman Farm”, Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ On My Mind”, and Little Walter Jacobs’ “It Ain’t Right”. Mayall penned tunes include “Little Girl”, “Key To Love”, and “Have You Heard”; plus he rearranged the rendition of “Another Man” (an old public-domain prison work song). The two bonus tracks (recorded before the original sessions and released as singles after the LP), are: “Lonely Years” and “Bernard Jenkins”.
One of the most influential albums in the British Invasion is back; “Remastered & Revisited”. The receipt of this reissue should be immense, classic material by classic artists during a classic era. All signs point to “yes” on this biscuit. Mark A. Cole
The Decca Music Group Ltd.; c/o UMG Recordings, Inc.; 1755 Broadway; New York, NY 10019: UMG; 2220 Colorado Ave.; Santa Monica, CA 90404: or , www.umusic.com
Freddie KingUltimate Collection
Hip-O Records 314-520-909-2
Texan Freddie King was born in Gilmer in 1934, and he died in Dallas on December 28, 1976. His musical legacy includes a his journeymanship in Chicago’s West Side that also helped to define the region’s cutting edge sound. His fluent finger-stylings and thumb/finger-picking, coupled with a boisterous falsetto vocal character, combined to develop his own sound. After ten years of beating the Windy City pavement, Freddie signed with the Cincinatti-based King/Federal labels for 1960 and 1961 sessions that produced the cream atop his foreshortened body of work.
Eight Federal sides laid down during that period are included in their original forms here. The biscuit bursts under the heavyweight status of his classics: “Have You Ever Loved A Woman”, “You’ve Got To Love Her With A Feeling”, “Lonesome Whistle Blues”, “I’m Tore Down”, “Someday After Awhile (You’ll Be Sorry)”. His slicing emotion-laden voice carries and cuts with the brilliance of his every notation and sustain. Equally impressive from the same sessions come three instrumentals that still enjoy the timeless strengths of their initial releases: “Hideaway”, “San-Ho-Zay”, and “The Stumble”.
King moved on to Atlantic Records waxing two LPs on their Cotillion offshoot: “My Feeling For The Blues”, produced by King Curtis and from that association, is also on this platter. Freddie pulls off some mighty fine string work on this one! Jumping aboard Leon Russell’s Shelter Records in the early 1970s, Freddie’s formulas took a harder rock-tinged flavor, some have Donald “Duck’ Dunn on bass and Russell on piano and guitar backing. “Palace of the King”, “Going Down”, his take on Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key To the Highway”, “Big Legged Woman”, and his anthemic “Woman Across The River” represent that Shelter period in this collection. A solo acoustic version of “Dust My Broom” and three more cuts from a later RSO label affiliation close it up. “Pack It Up” features Ray Davies on the electric piano and clavinet; “Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do” is a 1975 live version; and the 1974 “Sugar Sweet” is just that with Eric Clapton sharing the guitar chores with Freddie.
This is one of the finest retrospectives you will find on the market. A musical genius that left us too soon, Freddie King will never be forgotten. His front-to-back roster of hits on this biscuit will only reinforce his Olympian blues stature. No collection will be complete without this remastered tour de force! Mark A. Cole
Hip-O Records; c/o Universal Music Enterprises; UMG Recordings, Inc.; 2220 Colorado Ave.; Santa Monica, CA 90404: or , www.hip-o.com
Muddy WatersFathers And Sons
MCA Records 088-112-648-2
McKinley Morganfield became the legendary Muddy Waters while going on to become the all-declarative ‘father of Chicago blues’. Dating to 1969 sessions with Chess Records’ producer Marshall Chess and bonus tracks from a live Chicago concert of the same year, this platter has twenty prime-Muddy cuts to jump up and down over. This is the height of Muddy’s fame and game, he has by this time perfected his ensemble sound that redefined Chicago electric blues. This release’s golden classic stature is only further enhanced by the superb musical teams that Muddy fields for the affairs.
Muddy’s vocals and guitar are here bridged by Michael Bloomfield on the guitar, Paul Butterfield on the harmonica, Otis Spann on the piano, Donald Dunn on the bass, and the ‘Shuffle Master’ Sam Lay on the drumkit. Guests include: Buddy Miles who plays drums on one tune; and Phil Upchurch handles the bass on a slab too. Harpist Jeff Carp also blows a tune and Paul Asbell kicks in the rhythm guitar on three tracks.
From his own hand Muddy plays “All Aboard”, “Mean Disposition”, “You Can’t Love What You Never Had”, “Walking Through The Park”, “Standin’ Around Cryin’”, “Country Boy”, and live versions of “Long Distance Call” and “Baby Please Don’t Go”. Chilling guitar action, romping rhythms, and explosive piano combine with Muddy’s smooth vocal deliveries and Butterfield’s honking harmonica to make this arresting session work and live material. Willie Dixon’s “I’m Ready”, “Oh Yeah”, and “Love The Life I Live”, Mel London’s “Sugar Sweet”, Eddie Boyd’s “Twenty Four Hours”, Bernard Roth’s “Forty Days And Forty Nights”, and Bill Broonzy’s “I Feel So Good” comprise the remaining material.
This hot 1969 lineup is enough reason to buy this remastered edition. Astoundingly fluent from start to finish, Muddy keeps the troops at their paces, with power blues the obvious result. Hear the very definition of Chicago electric blues on this plate! This reissue closes out twenty house-raising slices with Waters’ two-part theme “Got My Mojo Workin’” finishing out the sets. You can stir it up and stir it up, but this is as Muddy as it gets, the blues general leading his troops into illustrious musical battle. It never sounded sweeter! Mark A. Cole
MCA Records; 2220 Colorado Ave.; Santa Monica, CA 90404: or, www.umusic.com
Buddy GuyThe Best of Buddy Guy
MCA/Chess Records 088-112-736-2
Buddy Guy broke out of the Chicago barrel of blues fish with his initial session work for Chess, and the cutting of his own sides throughout the sixties for Phil and Leonard Chess. Buddy had taken the Delta blues of his Louisiana upbringing, the advice of Chicago master Muddy Waters, and his own allegiance to electric rock-bound guitar pyromania, and cut a blistering swath across the Chi-Town cityscape. The music he cut for Chess from his 1960 debut, through his 1967 departure, spelled the direction that his musical journey would take.
Buddy surrounded and was surrounded by some of Chicago’s finest bluesmen including the recently-deceased saxman Little Bobby Neely, pianist Little Brother Montgomery, Fred Below on the drums, Otis Spann on piano, saxist Abb Locke, Lafayette Leake with the organ, Lefty Blake and Matt Murphy on second guitars, saxmen A. C. Reed and Gene Barge, and Junior Wells on the harmonica. Mix-matching this personnel and others of top caliber, Buddy’s expressive guitar and his stridently individual vocals lay atop like sweet frosting.
There are eleven songs here and five come from Buddy: his well-known “Stone Crazy”, “Leave My Girl Alone”, “She Suits Me To A Tee” , and his co-written duo with Junior Wells, “Talkin’ ‘Bout Women Obviously”. He does studio stalwart Willie Dixon’s: “Let Me Love You Baby”, the jazz tinged “Pretty Baby”, the deep-blue “When My Left Eye Jumps”, and an alternate take on “Too Many Ways”. His redux of Sonny Boy’s “Keep It To Yourself” and the Badger-Geddins-Feinburg “My Time After While” finish out the collection. The Strat master, Guy, is shown in all his axe and vocal splendor with this small slice of his workbody.
Built and styled aboard some of the best support Chicago could offer, Buddy kept playin’ the blues like his great mentor, Muddy Waters, told him. Still pushing the axe envelope, Guy continues to pack the houses with his incessant blues-fevered approach. This collection takes a bite into now-five decade career of the reigning head of the Chicago school of blues. An importantly formative, but already matured, stylistic period in his life; this assembly of 60s Buddy is powerful and incomparable. Mark A. Cole
MCA Records; 2220 Colorado Ave.; Santa Monica, CA 90404: or, www.umusic.com
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