MusicPosted by kevin Mon, February 16, 2009 23:04:56

So, I get an email from a friend….

‘I know its strange to email you at this time but sitting in a blues bar in Chicago and thought of you – fantastic I have a new appreciation’

And these, gentle reader, is a fantastic email to get, as it gives me a very easy excuse for a blog, and a chance to write about probably the most under-valued and misunderstood music around these days.

Almost 30 years ago, I wandered into a record shop in Edinburgh, all new wave attitude and stupid haircut, and heard some music that just completely blew me away. I had a related discussion with Mrs Emu about this a few nights ago; where she claimed that there was something about sound systems in record shops that makes music sound great, whereas I believe that there are just sussed people in charge of the music. Whatever, this was fantastic – it was ‘Boom Boom Boom’ by John Lee Hooker, and I did something that I’ve only ever done that once – I went up to the counter and asked for a copy of whatever was playing. Now, slightly unfortunately this was the ‘Blues Brothers’ soundtrack, so my next few years were spent trying to backtrack from that to the source of this fantastic music, and that in turn meant some pretty challenged purchases, but it was a reasonably entertaining journey.

Years later, and a bit more up to speed on what was what in the Blues canon, I ordered an Elmore James album from my local HMV. I happened to know the manager there, and when I went in to pick it up, I asked if I could play a couple of tracks through the sound system. (Thereby, incidentally, proving both mine & Mrs E’s theories to be correct.) Now, Elmore James is an artist who you just have to listen to. I could go on about why he is so fantastic at some length, and I may well do just that in a future blog, so to hear him thumping out throughout the shop was something pretty special. But not nearly as special as the woman who rushed up to the desk….”That music – I’ve never heard anything like it before – where can I get a copy?”.

And so it is with some sorts of music. It’s a pretty good feeling to be able to share it with people, so, in the style of Hi Fidelity, here’s a top 5 blues artists you really, really ought to own. Note that this concentrates on Chicago blues, we could go down to the delta, but that will have to wait for now…

1. Muddy Waters – has an astonishing history – the Father of the Blues, kept Chess records alive, inspired the British Blues revival in the 60’s, worked with Sunnyland Slim, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Bill Broonzy, gave Chuck Berry his first break…so he was a pretty influential sort of fellow. And in 1977 he recorded ‘Hard Again’, with James Cotton and Johnny Winter. Recorded it in 2 days indeed. And, in my opinion, you’ll never hear a harder, more perfect blues album. If you don’t own it, buy it. If you do own it, take it down to your local record shop and get them to play it back to you and see what happens.
2. Elmore James – could play the slide guitar like no-one else before or since. His technical genius owed a lot to Hawaiian influences, and in addition the two great complimenting factors were his screaming, almost falsetto voice, and his band – the Broomdusters. You’ll be hard pressed to find a tighter backing band, and it’s a huge shame that EJ and the Broomdusters never found the fame they deserved in the early 60’s. So track down what you can – if you can find a copy of the Charly album ‘One Way Out’, fantastic, otherwise try to get a recording with ‘The Sky Is Crying’, ‘One Way Out’ and ‘Dust My Blues’. You should find yourself crying or dancing, and ideally both.
3. Sonny Boy Williamson (2). There were two SBW’s, but the one you want to listen to initially is SBW (II), aka Rice Miller. Mad as a bucket of frogs, but you can’t fault his influence. I saw some footage of him on a recording of ‘Ready, Steady, Go’, dressed in a ‘city gent’ suit, and wearing a bowler hat – I think he was trying to fit in with the English audience. He once et fire to a hotel room by trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator. Anyway, the point about SBW is that he was playing straight Chicago Blues that people just felt they had to reference, or in some cases, downright plagiarise. There was something about the way that he approached his music that made it instantly accessible, which given that he was taking often fairly sinister songs from the delta, hopping up to Chicago, and then travelling to play to audiences in Europe, is no mean achievement. You really ought to listen to ‘Help Me’, Eyesight to the Blind’ and ‘Checkin’ Up On My Baby’ to understand what I mean here.
4. Koko Taylor – Not a big name outside blues afficianados, but her stuff is pretty easy to get hold of, and you could do worse than go to one of the Alligator compilations. Try to get something that uses the big Chicago sound with lots of horns, like she has on ‘Wang Dang Doodle’. The inspiring thing about Koko Taylor is the ease with which she can move towards a gospel sound while still sounding completely genuine.
5. Howling Wolf – another huge influence on the British Blues scene in the 60’s, and his ‘The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions’ album, is worth buying just to hear him make mincemeat of the trendy blues wannabees. He sometimes comes across as pretty scary, which is all part of the package, and he must come pretty close to Willie Dixon in the output he’s produced over the years. Have a listen to the anthology album (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Howlin-Wolf-Anthology/dp/B000NIWITA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1234824783&sr=1-2) if you need an introduction.

And no time for BB King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and all the rest. But this was just to get started, so maybe another time, another club and another blog.

Happy listening!

When I was a young, easily influenced wannabe musician (well, let’s face it, a wannabe bloke who hung around with musicians), I was convinced that the defining quality of a really good song was the ability to pull it back to a vocal line and one instrument, typically a guitar or piano.

This theory stood me in fairly good stead as it managed to distance me from any prog-rock in the 1970’s. And largely the songs that were around in the 1970’s which sounded good acoustically then, still sound good now. For example, I heard an acoustic version of Whiskey In The Jar the other night that was every bit as powerful as Thin Lizzy, who, I’m ashamed to say, I had always thought wrote the song. And, at the other extreme, if you were to play, say, any song by The Rubettes on any combination of acoustic instruments, they’d still sound, at best, shite.

However, as Rick Wakeman, cape flying, was kicked down the King’s Road by the spit of punk & new wave in the late 70’s, the only thing that really mattered was being in a group. And with some notable exceptions, that’s pretty much the way it stayed, and, because the dynamics of music in groups are so fantastic to listen to and watch, for me they took over, and the ‘strip it back’ test sort of lost its meaning.

And then my friend James sent me this MP3 file, of a single lead vocal track from Marvin Gaye. And listening to it without the song that we’re all familar with makes it even more resonant; I knew he could sing, but somehow the full recording softens the emotion. So, consequently, I’m thinking about going back to basics. You?

Anyway, I’m going back to listen to some delta bluesmen…

So, best guitar solo in the world ever* goes to The Carpenters, for a slightly bizarre song; Goodbye To Love. Bizarre, because it really shouldn’t work. The lyric was inspired by Richard Carpenter watching a 1940’s film with Bing Crosby and Basil Rathbone**, in which the lovely (and pre pipe/deerstalker) Rathbone claims to have written a song called ‘Goodbye To Love’. Looking at John Bettis’s lyrics, it definitely feels like it was written especially for Karen C:

“I’ll say goodbye to love, No one ever cared if I should live or die, Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by, And all I know of love is how to live without it, I just can’t seem to find it

So I’ve made my mind up I must live my life alone, And though it’s not the easy way, I guess I’ve always known, I’d say goodbye to love”

The song starts in fairly traditional Carpenters style – soft, sweet, sad, sentimental, soporific, and probably some other words beginning with s. There’s even a clarinet (I think) popping up in the orchestration on the second verse. Then, after a minute or so, a band of angels start harmonising with Karen in a way that only really happens in MGM musicals or Carpenters songs. So far, so standard.

Then, an odd thing happens. Apparently, when they were recording the song, Richard hired Tony Peluzo to play a guitar solo. He recorded something very Carpenters-like, at which point RC said ‘Burn It’. He may well have said ‘Burn It, Man’, but I like to think that no member of the Carpenters family ever got thatcarried away. Anyway, what resulted was the most fantastic guitar solo, with feedback that actually harmonised with itself. And if that wasn’t enough, you get another verse,then just as the angels pop up again, in drives Tony with the real guitar solo.

The Carpenters actually received hate mail when their fans heard this song for the first time; ironic as it triggered off a whole range of pompous power ballads which probably deserved some real vitriol.

Anyway, the point of this is that it shouldn’t work, it does, and because it’s so fresh, and so well executed, it says more than a thousand axe-shredding copyists will ever do. Even if it is by The Carpenters.

*My opinion, and possibly only lasting this week

**They were in the film, rather than sat on the sofa watching it with him

I hadn’t really thought about blogging guitar solos before, but I just re-heard (and then repeated far too many times) a song on my ipod, and came to the conclusion that it’s just the best guitar solo…ever*

So, where would this feedback-fest monster be? If you look athttp://guitar.about.com/library/bl100greatest.htm,then you might hope the answer was with Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, or (at a push) Dave Gilmour.

But, sadly for all you axe-mania fans, my choice is to be found here…

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nooeMrCws-A

And, if I get a few minutes in the next couple of days, I’ll tell you why…

*until I hear the next one