Best Blues CD of 2012

Talking Guitar, by Paul Rishell

2012 was a good year for blues recordings. An unusual number our greatest blues performers released new CDs last year, including Lurrie Bell, Eddie C. Campbell, Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Dr. John, Buddy Guy, Magic Slim and the Teardrops, Janiva Magness, the Mannish Boys, Bonnie Raitt, Otis Taylor, and Joe Louis Walker.

It was a year of surprises, too. Who would have expected, for example, a terrific new CD from guitarist Milton Hopkins and singer Jewel Brown, two veteran Houston R&B performers who made their recording debuts in the '50s? It's also good to hear again from soul music great Mighty Sam McClain, who has struggled to make his music available.

But more than anything else, this was the year in which acoustic blues made a well-deserved comeback. Billy Boy Arnold, Rory Block, the Heritage Blues Orchestra, John Primer, and the duo of Hans Theessink and Terry Evans all released CDs, all or a significant portion of which featured acoustic guitar playing. Living Blues, the premiere blues magazine, devoted its October issue to “The Next Generation of Acoustic Blues,” profiling seven promising new performers, most of whom have not yet been recorded. Let's hope that's only temporary.

It's also been a year of respect for the past. Billy Boy Arnold's CD is a tribute to Big Bill Broonzy. Rory Block's profiles Rev. Gary Davis. And Maria Muldaur has assembled an anthology of contemporary blues women singing Memphis Minnie's songs.

I've heard previous CDs by guitarist and singer Paul Rishell and his partner, harmonica player and singer Annie Raines. I even own one. But they didn't prepare me for the excellence of Rishell's new CD, Talking Guitar. The 62-year-old Rishell, who says he has been studying blues guitar for 47 years, has mastered the intricate picking styles of ten pre-war country blues giants, including Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Leadbelly, and Charley Patton. To these 11 songs (there are two by Fuller, his favorite), he adds two original compositions done in the same style. He is joined on three tracks by Raines on harmonica. Here they are performing one of the originals, “I'm Gonna Jump and Shout,” live.

Let's be clear. This is not Paul Rishell doing these old songs in his own personal style. These tracks follow the original recordings fairly closely. This gives the CD more variety than most acoustic blues outings. In an April Living Blues interview, he explains that he made this CD for “people who don't know that much about country blues.”  (What does that say about me?)

I want them to be able to listen to these songs and pick out the parts and hear how great these guys really were without being intimidated by the fidelity of the recordings, which, in many cases, makes the songs almost impossible to listen to.

This is Paul Rishell the guitar teacher talking. Some of his guitar lessons are available free on the internet. Here's his introduction. You Tube will lead you to the other parts.

Rishell again:

That's how I think of myself: as helping people hear this music because it will help them make their life better. It's no joke. It's the truth.

Here are four honorable mentions.

• Billy Boy Arnold, Billy Boy Arnold Sings Big Bill Broonzy
  
  

• Shemekia Copeland, 33⅓
  
  

• The Heritage Blues Orchestra, And Still I Rise
  
  

• Otis Taylor, Contraband
  
  

I'll share my recommendations of some of the best historical jazz and blues CDs of 2012 in a future post.

Jimmy McCracklin (1921-2012)

Jimmy McCracklin, described as “the face of Oakland (CA) blues,” was one of the more prolific rhythm and blues singer-songwriters of the postwar era. His popularity endured for 65 years, from 1945 to 2010.  He died of complications from diabetes in a nursing home in San Pablo, CA, on December 20. He was 91.

He was born James Walker in Helena, Arkansas, on August 13, 1921. McCracklin was his stepfather's name. His family moved to St. Louis when he was seven, where he learned to play piano from blues legend Walter Davis. He served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he made his living as a boxer and a singer. 

His first recording, “Miss Mattie Left Me”/“Mean Mistreated Lover,” appeared on the Globe label in 1945. He recorded for several different producers in the late '40s and early '50s, most notably Oakland entrepreneur Bob Geddins and the Bihari brothers, owners of Modern Records. Many of these songs were credited to Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters. They were recorded under less than ideal conditions, and both his singing and piano playing can be somewhat raggedy and out of tune. Some of the best of his early records are collected on the Acrobat CD, Jimmy's Blues, 1945-1951. The complete Jimmy McCracklin from 1945-1954 can be found on three Classics CDs.  His recordings for the Modern label, including unreleased sides, are collected on two Ace CDs.  

Here's one of his earliest songs, “Rock and Rye,” released on the Courtney label in about 1946.

His biggest hit was “The Walk,” a dance tune recorded in Chicago for Chess Records in 1958. The background riff played by his guitarist, Lafayette Thomas, found its way onto many other records, most notably Freddy King's instrumental hit “Hideaway.” “The Walk” reached #5 on the R&B charts and led to a contract with a major label, Mercury Records, but no followup hits.

In the '60s, he charted twice on Art-Tone and four times on Imperial, where he recorded his second major hit, the popular New Orleans-style ballad “Think,” also known as “Later On.” His most popular recordings from 1956 to 1969 are found on the Razor & Tie CD, The Walk: Jimmy McCracklin at His Best.

He recorded for Stax in Memphis in the '70s, and JSP in England in the '80s. He ended his recording career with two well-received CDs for Bullseye Blues, My Story (1991) and A Taste of the Blues (1994), which featured guest artists like Lowell Fulson, Johnny Otis and Irma Thomas. Here he is with Irma Thomas in 1991 singing “Tomorrow.”

Jimmy McCracklin wrote many other songs, most notably “Tramp,” which was a hit for Fulson and the duo of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. He also claimed to have written “The Thrill is Gone,” which is usually credited to Roy Hawkins.

He continued to perform at blues festivals almost until his death. His last appearance was in 2010. Here's a live performance from 2007, with Jimmy singing a song he calls “At the Club.” Although the lyrics are different, R&B fans will recognize it as Amos Milburn's “Chicken Shack Boogie.”

Advance Planning

The Newport Jazz Festival

The Newport Jazz Festival program has been announced. Among the artists performing are Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea, Joshua Redman, Robert Glasper and Natalie Cole. Here's the complete lineup. Tickets are on now on sale.

rhodeislandtravelhandbook.com

The festival is takes place Friday through Sunday, August 2-4. The Friday night event is held in downtown at the Newport Casino. Reserved seats cost between $40 and $100. Two-day passes to the festival at Fort Adams State Park are $74 ($84 at the door). If you want to sit up front, there are reserved seats for $90 and $125.

I've only been to the Newport Jazz Festival once. The venue is much smaller than it looks in photographs. You have to take a bus from the parking lot to the entrance. The factor which limits attendance, however, is not tickets. It's very difficult to get a room in or around Newport, so you must plan well in advance.

Wayne Shorter

On February 15, Artist Share will will release a CD recorded last year, not at the festival, but at the “Newport Jazz Festival Gala event” held in conjunction with it. Performers on the CD include Dianne Reeves, Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Anat Cohen, Lionel Loueke and others.

Chicago Blues Festival

2013 is the 30^th anniversary of the Chicago Blues Festival. For the first time, it has been expanded from three to four days, June 6-9. It is held in Grant Park and admission is free. The lineup has not yet been announced. I'll keep you posted.

Best Jazz CD of 2012

Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project

When I was fortunate enough to host The House of Blue Lights on WIUP-FM, on my final two programs of each year I would present my choices for the best blues and jazz CDs of the year, along with runners-up, the best historical CDs, and my choices for the worst blues and jazz CDs of the year. (It's a lot easier to pick the worst CDs when you work at a radio station that gets free stuff. These days, I try to avoid buying turkeys.)

My choice for the best jazz CD of 2012 is Centennial by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project. Gil Evans (1912-1988) was a jazz composer, arranger and bandleader, active from the '30s to the '80s, and best known for his collaborations with Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool (1949), Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), Sketches of Spain (1960), and Quiet Nights (1962). Ryan Truesdell is himself a young composer-arranger, a protege of Maria Schneider. He co-produced her CD Sky Blue—my choice for the best CD of 2007. Maria Schneider studied with Gil Evans. Several of the musicians on Centennial are regular members of the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

When Ryan Truesdell began doing research on Gil Evans, the Evans family granted him access to Gil's manuscripts and he discovered about 100 compositions and/or arrangements that had never been recorded. He chose ten of them. The CD was funded through Artist Share, which solicits contributions from fans over the internet. The title Centennial reflects the fact that it was released on May 13, 2012, the hundredth anniversary of Evans' birth. Here is Ryan Truesdell explaining the project and ending with a now-obsolete appeal for contributions.

The songs span the period from 1947 to 1971. Five of the earliest are big band arrangements written for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Here is one of them, “The Maids of Cadiz,” a different arrangement of which appears on Sketches of Spain.

Much of the creative tension on the CD comes from the contrast between these arrangements from an earlier era and the more modern-sounding solos. The three longest pieces are “Punjab,” an Evans composition with an Indian flavor, anchored by Dan Weiss on tabla; “Barbara Song,” an Evans arrangement of a Kurt Weill song, featuring a long and inventive vibraphone solo by Joe Locke; and a medley of three Evans compositions, “Waltz/Variation on the Misery/So Long.” The tenor sax solo by Donny McCaslin on this 19-minute cut is a highlight of the CD.

For me, the only discordant note is a 1957 arrangement of “Smoking My Sad Cigarette,” sung by Kate McGarry, whose lyrics seem strangely out of place on a 2012 record.

Luciana Souza

Centennial has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, the Best Instrumental Arrangement (for “How About You?,” one of the Thornhill arrangements), and the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist (for “Look to the Rainbow,” sung by Luciana Souza).

Here are four honorable mentions that I also strongly recommend:

• Ravi Coltrane, Spirit Fiction.

  
  

  
  
• Jazz Soul Seven, Impressions of Curtis Mayfield.

  
  

  
  
• Branford Marsalis Quartet, Four MFs Playin' Tunes.

  
  

  
  
• Gregory Porter, Be Good.

Coltrane and Marsalis are familiar to most jazz fans. Jazz Soul Seven is an ad hoc group assembled for this session that includes Wallace Roney on trumpet, Ernie Watts on tenor sax, and Phil Upchurch on guitar. The CD contains 12 instrumental versions of Mayfield songs, including almost all of his greatest hits. Gregory Porter is a jazz singer-songwriter whose lyrics are inventive and thoughtful.

I'll present my choices for best blues CD and the best historical CDs in subsequent posts.

A New Blog

I've wanted to start a music blog for quite a while.

About a year ago, I began writing Thinking Slowly, a blog about the implications of social science research for politics in this country. Unfortunately, I've been inactive for several months while recovering from an injury. In the last few days, I've resumed Thinking Slowly. While I'm feeling ambitious, now is a good time to start writing about music.

Blues and the Abstract Truth will be about my two favorite musical genres, jazz and blues. Blues is defined broadly to include rhythm and blues and soul music. Other musical genres may slip in occasionally. I'll be writing about blues and jazz from the beginnings of recorded music up to and including the present, but you'll find that I'm strongly imprinted on the post-World War II period—roughly between 1945 and 1970—when when both of these musical forms exploded in both creativity and popularity.

You can expect to read reviews of recent jazz and blues CDs (although I don't hear as much new music as when I was a disc jockey and I got to listen to all the free stuff the record companies sent to the radio station.)  I'll comment on live performances I've seen. (I live in Pittsburgh, which has struggling blues and jazz scenes.) I'll also try to keep you posted on the latest blues and jazz news. Sadly, that news often includes obituaries of both prominent and obscure musicians.

In the past, I've discovered that it's much easier to write about music history than to write about the music itself. It often seems that I lack the vocabulary to explain why I like a particular piece of music. I hope you'll bear with me as I try to learn how to express myself as a music reviewer.

The name of the blog honors the 1961 Impulse LP by composer, arranger and saxophone player Oliver Nelson, which you can listen to in its entirety on You Tube—and I hope you will. In spite of my fondness for the title, it will be obvious that most of what's written here is opinion rather than “abstract truth.” I look forward to reading your questions, comments and criticisms.

Last January through June, I posted five articles about music on Thinking Slowly. I've moved them over here, where they are a much better fit.

Two Great Vocal Group Singers

Herb Reed (1928-2012)

Herb Reed, the bass singer of the Platters, the best selling rhythm and blues vocal group of the '50s, died of pulmonary disease in a hospice in Danvers, Massachusetts. He was 83. Here's an obituary.

The Platters were a prototype of the West Coast R&B vocal group style. They were known primarily for their romantic ballads. Their arrangements emphasized their lead tenor, the magnificent Tony Williams, with the other members usually crooning quietly in the background. They had 21 songs on the R&B charts between 1955 and 1967, with four of them, “Only You,” “The Great Pretender,” “My Prayer,” and “Twilight Time,” reaching #1. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998, its first year.

Of the five Platters during their best-selling years—Reed, Williams, David Lynch, Paul Robi and Zola Taylor—only Reed was a founding member of the group, and was the last survivor. The group was formed in 1953 by five current and former students at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. The original lead singer was Cornell Gunter, later of the Flairs and the Coasters. They first recorded for Federal Records in 1953 and 1954. At that time, Alex Hodge occupied Robi's chair and Taylor was not yet a member of the group. During their time with Federal, veteran songwriter Buck Ram became their manager. He wrote several of their biggest hits.

Using his connections in the music business, Ram got them a contract with Mercury, a major label at the time. They re-recorded Ram's song “Only You,” first done for Federal, and it was an immediate success. During their time with Mercury, their sound gradually changed. They moved away from R&B, crossed over to the Pop charts, and were soon accompanied by lush stringed orchestras.

Williams was the first to leave the group in 1961. The others followed suit. Herb Reed was the last to leave in 1969. For the rest of his life, he led various Platters groups, usually billed as “Herb Reed's Platters,” since the right to use the name “The Platters” belonged to the Buck Ram estate. Herb Reed's Platters performed recently in Pittsburgh at Henry DeLuca's Roots of Rock and Roll shows and on one of T. J. Lubinsky's “Doo-Wop” specials for WQED. Reed was one of several original members of vocal groups who went to court to keep various counterfeit groups from performing under their name, and he finally won the exclusive right to use the name “The Platters” in 2011.

Many vocal group fans prefer the Platters' Federal recordings. These 24 sides are available on an import CD from Ace Records in the U. K. For their Mercury hits, I recommend the 2-CD set, The Magic Touch: An Anthology. There are lots of “Platters” CDs out there, including multiple rerecordings of their hits. I advise you to stay away from anything recorded after 1961.

Fortunately, a recent 30-minute interview with Herb Reed is available (in three 10-minute segments). The interviewer is fairly clueless, but Herb deals with him patiently.

Below is a clip of the Platters lip-syncing “You'll Never, Never Know” from the 1956 film The Girl Can't Help It, with Tom Ewell and Jayne Mansfield. The song, which features a nice interplay between Reed and Williams, is joined in progress, since the first few bars were obscured by dialogue.

Williams was the lead singer on all the Platters' hits, but the other members had opportunities to sing lead on album cuts. Here's Herb Reed doing a 1957 remake of “Sixteen Tons,” a song he frequently performed at shows.

Bobby Thomas (1935-2012)

Bobby Thomas, lead singer of the Vibranaires, died on May 3 in Neptune, NJ, of complications from diabetes. Bobby grew up in Asbury Park. His singing was influenced by Sonny Til, lead singer of the Orioles. In 1948, when he was 13, Bobby formed his first group, the Crooners.  That group eventually morphed into the Vibranaires, who recorded "Doll Face" on the After Hours label in 1954.

“Doll Face” was recorded on a low-budget, in a low-tech Harlem studio. The lyrics are unimpressive, and 19-year-old Bobby's voice occasionally wanders off-key. The record didn't sell and is extremely rare. In short, it had all the qualities needed to make it a collector's classic, a favorite among hard core vocal group fans. The same four men also recorded “Stop Torturing Me” on the Chariot label as the Vibes. After a few years in the Army, Bobby sang on three releases by the V-Eights on the Vibro label.

In 1966, Sonny Til invited Bobby to join the Orioles, by now an oldies act. He remained with them until 1974. After Sonny's death in 1981, Bobby formed an Orioles tribute group, which continued to perform until recently under the name “The Bobby Thomas Orioles.” They appeared in Pittsburgh under the sponsorship of the now-defunct Pittsburgh Old Record Collector's Club (P. O. R. C. C.). Technically, this was one of those counterfeit groups that Herb Reed disliked, but because Bobby was so well respected by vocal group fans and never tried to deceive anyone about his connection to the Orioles, nobody seemed to mind.

Here are the Bobby Thomas Orioles singing “I Cover the Waterfront” at a 2003 show.

Three More Losses

Jerry McCain (1930-2012)

Jerry McCain, an extraordinary blues singer and harmonica player, died on March 28 in Gadsden, AL, the same town where he was born and lived his life. I will remember him most for his songs, which were sometimes topical and often filled with wry humor.

McCain said he learned to play the harmonica because it was the only musical instrument he could afford. As a young man, his role model was Chicago harmonica player Little Walter. When Walter played in Gadsden in 1953, McCain and his band showed him around town and Walter invited him to join him on stage. McCain said that, in the darkened club, some people couldn't tell when Walter stopped playing and he began. This gave him the courage to send a demo to Lillian McMurrray's legendary Trumpet Records in Jackson, MS. Trumpet was the label for which Sonny Boy Williamson (#2—Aleck Miller) first recorded, as well as Elmore James, Willie Love, Arthur Crudup and Big Joe Williams.

His first Trumpet session was on October 10, 1953.  It produced his first single, “Wine-O-Wine”/”East of the Sun” (Trumpet 217), credited to Jerry “Boogie” McCain, a billing that stuck with him for the rest of his career. “Wine-O-Wine” was loosely based on Stick McGhee's 1949 hit, “Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee.” I consider “East of the Sun” to be the better side, despite the odd combination of McCain's harmonica and Bernard Williams' tenor sax. McCain had a second Trumpet session the following year, at which he recorded “Stay Out of Automobiles,” a cautionary tale about unwanted pregnancy.

When Trumpet folded, he recorded six singles for Excello Records in Nashville, including the popular “Courtin' in a Cadillac.” His biggest hit, however, was the catchy “She's Tough,” which was released on Rex Records in New Orleans in 1960.

McCain recorded more-or-less continuously for the remainder of his life, up through his 2000 CDThis Stuff Just Kills Me, on which he tackled the problem of addiction. His latter day reputation is based primarily on four excellent CDs he recorded for Ichiban Records between 1989 and 1993. Here's a favorite song of mine from that period.

In 2005, blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd traveled around the country to make a CD and a documentary film about some of the blues pioneers who were still performing (some of whom have since passed away). McCain's “Potato Patch” was a highlight of the CD. Here's a clip from the video which shows him being interviewed in his home. McCain was always an outspoken advocate for the blues.

I didn't learn of Jerry McCain's death until more than a month after it happened. His obituary did not appear in any major U. S. newspapers; however, it was noted by The Guardian in Great Britain.

Big Walter Price (1917-2012)

Big Walter Price was the “other” Big Walter, to distinguish him from Big Walter Horton, the Memphis to Chicago harmonica player who was once a member of Muddy Waters' band. Walter Price was a strong vocalist and barrelhouse piano player who grew up in East Texas and spent his life in the Houston area. He died on March 7 in a nursing home at the age of 94. He is best known for four singles he recorded for Don Robey's Peacock label in 1955 and 1956. The most successful of these was “Pack Fair and Square,” a song with a strong resemblance to Joe Turner's “Flip, Flop and Fly.”

Many of Price's recordings were done in the swamp-pop style that was popular in East Texas and Louisiana. They were released on smaller local labels or were self-releases. Price is also known for having introduced Texas blues singer-guitarist Albert Collins. Here's a rare recording of Price singing “My Tears” in 1963, accompanied by Collins. As far as I know, it is unavailable on CD.

Eddie King (1938-2012)

Eddie King was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer, known both as a soul-shouting vocalist and an exciting instrumentalist. He was born Edward Milton in Talledega, AL and moved to Chicago in 1954. He died in Peoria, IL on March 14. He was part of Chicago's second generation West Side blues scene, along with Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Luther Allison, Eddie C. Campbell and others. He was billed as “Little Eddie” due to his short stature, and he took the last name King because of his admiration for B. B. King.

His first recording was in 1960 on J.O.B. Records, “Love You, Baby”/”Shakin' Inside.” He performed and recorded duets with his sister, Mae Bee Mae. He was lead guitarist for Koko Taylor for 20 years, after which he formed his own group, the Swamp Bees. Eddie King was a quality artist who was underrecorded and largely unknown outside of Chicago. His 1997 CD, Another Cow's Dead, won a Handy Award for best comeback album of the year and I highly recommend it.