The real Leonard Chess (seated) with Phil at right

A few months ago, my blogging buddy April asked me what I thought about the movie “Cadillac Records,” a glossy look back at the birth of modern electric blues at Chicago’s Chess label in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

My quick response was “not much,” given the project’s main goal of bringing some blues cred – and the thespian merit badge for portraying a tortured druggy artist – to the worldwide franchise that is Beyonce, who plays R&B singer Etta James in the movie. But after I gave it more thought, I decided any film that brings a little Wolf, Walter and Muddy to the masses ain’t such a bad thing.

Most people have a passing familiarity with Chess blues, even if they don’t realize it. They’ve probably heard the Howlin’ Wolf classic Smokestack Lightning in a Viagra commercial. Or maybe they remember Led Zeppelin’s version of Sonny Boy Williamson’s Bring It On Home from ‘69. Or maybe they had too much to drink in a corner bar while the cover band mangled Got My Mojo Working by Muddy Waters.

If “Cadillac Records” encouraged some of these folks to dig a little deeper into the Chess catalog, then it was probably worth the $12 million it took to make it. And it appears the movie accomplished this objective, generating brisk sales of a companion CD (forget the official soundtrack) called “Best of Chess: Original Versions of Songs in Cadillac Records,” featuring prime slabs of Chess goodness by Muddy, Wolf, Etta, Little Walter, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.

The fact is, there are very few clunkers in the Chess blues catalog, which shouldn’t be surprising given the artists involved and the street smarts of Leonard Chess, who founded the label in 1950 with his brother Phil. Then again, the two men often employed an operating philosophy best described as “DIY.” And Leonard was prodded into recording the label’s bread and butter – primal yet tightly arranged electric blues – by the artists themselves. Also, despite the success of those songs, he would often record harp virtuoso Little Walter without his signature amplified sound.

But by the time Muddy teamed up with bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon and started recording with his game-changing band in 1953 – Little Walter on harp, Otis Spann on piano, Jimmy Rogers on guitar and Elgin Evans on drums – the label had hit its stride. Hoochie Coochie Man, I Just Want To Make Love To You, I’m Ready, Mannish Boy… The only thing that came close to rivaling those amazing songs was the major fuss that Ray Charles created over at Atlantic Records, recording primarily in New York City with a group of hired studio hands. Let’s put the two artists back-to-back in this next sample to get a better sense of how Brother Ray was feeding off the hard stops and starts that had become a staple of Muddy’s working band in Chicago (Hoochie Coochie was recorded in January ’54; Greenbacks in November of that year): (I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man/Muddy Waters-Greenbacks/Ray Charles

Chess even scored with the occasional attempt to latch onto the folk music craze. “Folk Singer” was just as vital as other albums Muddy released in the ‘60s, and “The Real Folk Blues” records sold well too – although I’m sure the coffeehouse crowd was thrown for a loop by these convenient excuses to repackage some fairly menacing and hard-driving blues singles by Muddy, Wolf and Sonny Boy.

Let’s put the hits aside for now and listen to a few tunes that were featured as part of the “Chess Collectibles” series, along with a couple other out-of-print releases.

“One More Mile” (Chess Collectibles Vol. 1, released in ’94) pulled together 41 rare and previously unreleased recordings by Muddy in a wide range of settings. My favorite cuts in the collection feature Muddy either solo or backed only by Louis Myers (original sideman for Little Walter with his band The Aces) on acoustic guitar and Mojo Bruford on harp. Blues promoter Willy Leiser recorded these tunes for a radio broadcast in ’72 while Muddy and band were in Europe to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival. As Mary Katherine Aldin points out in the liner notes, “Perhaps the forced semi-acoustic format of the radio broadcast brought back memories of some of Muddy’s earlier songs and styles, since the majority of the tunes he chose to do that day had very old roots in his repertoire.” Here’s a powerful solo performance of a song Muddy first recorded in 1948: Feel Like Goin’ Home/Muddy Waters

Howlin’ Wolf also got the Collectible treatment in ’94 with “Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog.” And, once again, I was drawn to the bare-bones stuff that sounds unlike anything else in the artist’s Chess catalog. Ironically, the four acoustic tunes (and an accompanying interview) were recorded in ’68 as part of a promo for his psychedelic album, which clearly inspired The Black Keys when they were trying to come up with a cover for their album “Brothers” (artwork for Wolf’s album at left). Wolf famously referred to the album as “birdshit.” Others loved it. I’ll stick with the acoustic songs – the only time Chess recorded Wolf solo. Maybe the setting put Wolf (like Muddy) in a pensive mood, thinking about the past and songs like this one, which is about as psychedelic as Don Draper’s wardrobe: I Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog No More/Howlin’ Wolf

Volume 3 in the Chess Collectible series belongs to Little Walter – my personal favorite of the three. And if you share my obsession with all things Walter, you should just go ahead and spring for the five-disc “The Complete Chess Masters (1950-1967).” Given Walter’s phenomenal jazz-like chops (and unlike many of his blues brethren), he rarely fell back on a rote set of licks or solos. Which makes this set a fascinating listen when you compare the masters with various alternate takes. Case in point: the blazing instrumental Juke… In this next clip, listen to the opening riffs in the first sample (the master) and the second (alternate take). If I were Leonard Chess, I’d be hard-pressed to pick which one to release. Both are exceptionally strong, and the alternate certainly deserved a better fate than the 43 years it remained on the shelf in the U.S.: Juke (master)-Juke (alt.)/Little Walter

A few posts back, I waxed poetic about a four-disc set of Sonny Boy Williamson’s complete recordings on Chess’s Checker Records subsidiary. And one of the great joys of this collection is listening to the alternate takes on disc four, complete with some typically profane studio chatter between Sonny Boy and Leonard Chess. We featured the famous Little Village conversation in a previous post. Here’s another exchange involving the song 99 (or “do the 69,” as Leonard says at the top). When it came to music, Leonard Chess only knew what he liked. So he offered very little in terms of specific instructions to Sonny Boy – other than “sing it like you mean it” and “not so much blowin’ on the intro.” And, of course, Sonny Boy would give it right back, which would lead to more personal comments about women on the side and Chess having his “nose in that man’s ass.” Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in that place… 99/Sonny Boy Williamson II

I’ll close with a couple cuts from another great (and hard to find) release – “Wrinkles: Classic and Rare Chess Instrumentals.” The first is a tune credited to Otis Spann but it prominently features Jody Williams on guitar. Spann doesn’t show up until about the one-minute mark, but it’s well worth the wait: Five Spot/Otis Spann The second is a Bo Diddley tune called Mess Around, which bears no relation to the R&B hit that Ray Charles recorded in ’53. Just another typically satisfying workout by Bo and his band – and another fine example of the undeniable power of the maraca: Mess Around/Bo Diddley

Muddy at Montreux in ’72… during the same trip that resulted in the solo recording of Feel Like Goin’ Home. Kind of an odd assortment of musicians – looks like Muddy’s band teamed up with some Euro-rockers. What the hell… it’s still Muddy.

We now have a twitter account, which means we need to do something drastic to promote it. So we’re giving away 2 free tickets to The Black Keys’ sold-out New Year’s Eve Show at the historic Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Here’s how you can earn a chance to win:

1. Follow Rubber City Review on twitter (link at right)
2. Tweet a 140-character (max) essay telling us why you need to go
3. Include the following hashtag: #rcrtix (OK, now you have 7 fewer characters to work with!)

Deadline for entries is midnight, December 4, and our team of editors from around the globe (our Russian judge is shown squatting at right) will pick the winner the following week. And don’t forget to check back for more goodies down the road.

Speaking of the Keys… You know Dan has turned into a Nashville Cat when he starts sending me videos of pedal steel players – as opposed to, say, Freddie King or Magic Sam.

Here’s a couple of his latest finds – Alvino Rey and Pete Drake. And once you get past the corn (Lawrence Welk, faux farm setting), this stuff is pretty damn tasty.

Born in 1908, Rey grew up in Cleveland and has been called the father of the pedal steel guitar. Unlike the much-younger Drake, he honed his chops outside of country music, playing mostly big-band swing. But both Rey and Drake were early pioneers of “talkbox” technology later made famous by another northeast Ohioan, Joe Walsh (Rocky Mountain High), the ubiquitous Peter Frampton (who now hides out in Cincinnati) and funkmeister Roger Troutman (Zapp), who hailed from nearby Hamilton, OH. So blame the Buckeyes for one of the more notable gimmicks of the Seventies.

In this next cut, Rey joins the Lawrence Welk Orchestra – don’t laugh: its alumni include more than a few red-hot jazzbos – on a blazing workout of the exotic Hindustan, a tune originally written in the ‘30s for the theater organ but later given the full swing treatment by Artie Shaw. No talkbox on this tune, but I love how Rey gets a very respectable wah-wah effect by manipulating his volume control (long before Danny Gatton twisted the knobs on his first Telly). Also interesting to note that Rey’s first talkbox experiments involved having his wife Luise hide behind a curtain and sing along to his pedal steel, using a specially rigged microphone.

Drake was a long-time mainstay on the Nashville music scene – “first-chair” pedal steel player for Tammy Wynette (Stand By Your Man), Charlie Rich (Behind Closed Doors), Don Gibson, Marty Robbins and a long list of other country music stars. He even played steel on Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking Nashville sessions, adding some legitimacy to the hit Lay Lady Lay, as well as on George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.”

For the purposes of setting up the next video (and tying it in with the previous one), I’ll add that Drake played on the first international hit involving a talkbox. He recorded Forever back in ’64 – at least a decade before Frampton came alive and Zapp got more bounce to the ounce:

One more nod to the Keys… I know this video has shown up on their main website and myspace page, but I’ll post it here in case some of you missed it. It takes you inside the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio as Dan and Pat re-imagine deep southern soul in the place that practically invented it. “We got a little trashed the night before and asked our manager for a harpsichord,” Dan said. “It showed up at the studio the next morning.”

Oh, and here’s a little taste of Roger Troutman, who scared the piss out of Muffy, Bif, Scooter and the rest of the student body at Miami University in the mid ’70s with his mighty band Roger and The Human Body… More Bounce to the Ounce/Zapp with Roger Troutman

In one of our first posts, I described the unique challenges of serving as a hired sideman for rock legend Bo Diddley. Well, that assignment probably was a cakewalk compared to backing up Chuck Berry. Just ask Keith Richards and Johnnie Johnson.

Richards’ thorny relationship with Berry was captured in the 1987 documentary “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll.” And Johnson had his own axe to grind with Berry (more on that later).

I was reminded of the ties that bind Richards and Johnson while listening to the song Tanqueray (featured in our last post) from Johnson’s 1992 release “Johnnie B. Bad.” The tune showcases Johnson’s stunning chops on piano and features guest artist Richards on guitar and background vocals. Tanqueray And that sent me on yet another detour as I started searching for prime video of Johnson struttin’ his stuff.

I found several clips on youtube, but I was mainly entertained by some footage from the Berry documentary – specifically, a rehearsal session involving Berry, Richards and Johnson.

If you haven’t seen “Hail,” I suggest you check it out, especially if you have a weakness for ‘50s rock. The director, Taylor Hackford (“An Officer and a Gentleman”), did a good job of capturing the complicated mess that is Berry. But one could argue that Richards stole the show. Charged with the task of serving as the musical director for a concert in St. Louis celebrating Berry’s 60^th birthday, Richards grew increasingly frustrated with Berry, who has little use for anyone telling him what to do. At one point, Richards instructed the soundman to place a “decoy” amp on stage, given Berry’s tendency to twist knobs for no good reason (the real amp used for the concert mix was placed far from Berry’s reach – in the basement of the theater!).

Richards’ patience is especially tested during a rehearsal for Berry’s classic song Carol. Just look at the sneer on Richards’ face in the video – probably more of a playful bonding with his musical soulmate Johnson, who knew only too well what Richards was feeling. Not that Berry was off-base as he prodded Richards. Although the guitar lick in question was counterintuitive to Richards, it’s on the original single (but not quite as pronounced as the way Berry plays it).

Reminds me of an equally counterintuitive instruction that Bo Diddley gave our drummer – don’t play the Bo Diddley beat. Said drummer took it in stride… The groove ended up feeling right, and who was he to question Bo? Richards, on the other hand, had probably signed on to the project as a favor and was tired of putting up with Berry’s shit (even though he clearly admired the man’s artistry and had spent his entire career reinventing Chuck Berry riffs). ”He’s the only guy that hit me that I never got back,” Richards says of Berry. “Maybe I’m saving it.”

Johnson’s troubles with Berry were more deeply rooted. He eventually sued his former boss, claiming that he co-wrote many songs – including Roll Over Beethoven and Sweet Little Sixteen – that were only credited to Berry. Given the many years that had passed since those songs were recorded, the lawsuit was dismissed. But Johnson, who passed away in St. Louis in 2005, received some long-overdue recognition when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. As Richards points out in the movie, Berry built many of his hits around the keys Johnson was playing on piano, instead of typical guitar keys like E, A and D. “Chuck adapted them to guitar and put those great lyrics behind them. Without someone to give him them riffs… voilà! No song. Just a lot of words on paper.”

But Richards obviously had a great deal of respect for his musical mentor. On hearing Berry for the first time, Richards says, “that’s when I knew what I really wanted to do. I didn’t dream I could make a living at it, but I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I would do it as a hobby even if I was an accountant… Probably be better off!”

Here’s to Keith Richards and Johnnie Johnson: High Priests of the Sacred Order of Rock ‘n Roll Sidemen.

More Johnnie Johnson – radiatin’ the 88s with Johnnie’s Boogie, from ’95:

I couldn’t resist ending with this great relic from one of our gigs with Bo Diddley, a gift from our soundman. As you can tell, Bo didn’t care much for my amp: Jack It Up

The election’s over, so it’s time to drink. Heavily.

Which brings us to the second installment of our tribute to the Great American Drinking Song. And we’re using the same basic guidelines that applied to the first post:

1. No rugby songs or sea chanteys
2. Primary sources: honky tonk, R&B and blues
3. Extra points for referencing alcohol consumption in song title
4. Lyrics should convey hopelessness, denial and/or complete lack of higher cognitive activity
5. Accompanying music should be oddly uplifting to discourage impaired listener from blowing his/her brains out

So there you have it – five basic tips on how to write an effective drinking song. It also helps if the songwriter has firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to spend several hours in a dimly lit honky tonk, staring at a bubbling beer sign while listening to the finest examples of first-generation drinking songs by the likes of Hank Williams, George Jones, Wynonie Harris, Dinah Washington, Louis Jordan, Merle Haggard, Amos Milburn… Oh, and downing crappy cocktails that somehow taste better when the bartender’s yelling “Last Call!”

Of course, I’m assuming you have the time, inclination and energy to actually write a drinking song. If you’re like me, you’d rather have someone else go through all the trouble of coming up with these hard-earned odes to a life well wasted.

First up, a tune by the great blues piano player Memphis Slim. Apparently, Slim ended up with the beer-drinkinest woman in all of Chicago. We’re talking $45 of beer in one sitting – and that was back in 1940! Now, either this woman had her hand in Slim’s back pocket or he was slammin’ a few himself. Regardless, I don’t think this was a long-term relationship for Slim, who went on to record with numerous labels – Decca, King, Mercury, Vee-Jay and Folkways, to name a few – before making a permanent move to Paris (France, that is) in ’62. And that’s where he lived the good life for the next 26 years, far from the beer-drinking floozy who inspired this tune… Beer Drinking Woman/Memphis Slim

Guitar slinger Goree Carter came across a similar woman down in Texas. But instead of dumping her at the first opportunity, Goree realized that he loved his baby no matter how much she had to drink. I especially like the drunken rumba rhythm on this tune… Sounds like something the band decided to screw around with late at night, when they were sick of doing shuffles and just sober enough to play while sitting down. Goree’s guitar is just right, with enough grit and grease to give fellow Texan Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown a run for his money. You can find both of them on an outstanding collection we featured a few posts back – “Boogie Uproar: Texas Blues and R&B, 1947-1954.” Drunk or Sober/Goree Carter

Now let’s flip this around and look at it from a woman’s perspective. Most women know that a man who’s had too much to drink occupies roughly the same spot on the evolutionary scale as a brain-damaged chimp. And we know what chimps do when they’re pissed off. That’s why God made it difficult for drunks to walk upright (and God help the drunk who passes out in front of a woman done wrong). It’s safe to say Dinah Washington dealt with more than a few over-consumptive men during her turbulent life – married eight times, divorced seven, and many lovers on the side. And she gave as good as she got, as evidenced by this nasty couplet: “He’s a mess when he gets his head full of junk… and every time I kiss him he’s smellin’ like a skunk.” I’m guessing this next one was an “answer song” to Juice Head Baby by Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson. Another interesting side note: It features a young John Coltrane on sax. Juice Head Man of Mine/Dinah Washington

But just like the sad sack featured in that song, a hard-drinking woman can be a victim of her own doing. Take Helen Humes, for example. She was sitting in the corner just as high as she could be – so drunk, in fact, that the cops didn’t even notice her when they raided the joint. So if there’s a bright side to this cautionary tale, it’s probably this: “When in doubt, just pass out.” Hardly the stuff of self-help books… but it worked for Helen. They Raided the Joint/Helen Humes

Speaking of self-help messages, Merle Haggard came up with a great one on this next song. Merle’s baby just left him, so instead of wallowing in self-pity, he decided to act like a man and head straight to the nearest bar. Of course, the main reason to listen to this song is the masterful guitar of James Burton, who had just replaced another legend of hard twang, Merle’s original string-bender Roy Nichols. Burton joined Merle and band in ’66 to record “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” which included the title cut, Life in Prison, this next tune and nine other prime examples of the classic Bakersfield Sound (even though the album was recorded at Capitol Studios in Hollywood). Merle’s ‘60s albums inspired countless cowpunks and modern-day honky tonkers – from Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle to Gretchen Wilson and Jamey Johnson. Long Live The Hag… Drink Up & Be Somebody/Merle Haggard

As long as we’re doing the tonk thing, might as well walk around to the other side of the bar and see what it’s like to serve these losers. Even though George Jones spent much of his life at the mercy of the man serving drinks, he probably had a good idea of what it must’ve been like staring into the glassy, vacant eyes of hard-core drinkers for hours on end. So here’s George’s sad take on the plight of the bartender… Bartender’s Blues/George Jones

And while we’re at it, let’s look at what happens when the bartender has a little too much to drink himself. This guy ended up on the wrong side of the bar, cavorting with the very people he’s supposed to babysit. A great tune from the unfortunately named Asleep at the Wheel: Tonight the Bartender is on the Wrong Side of the Bar/Asleep at the Wheel

Bars don’t just cater to cognitively impaired rednecks. Great thinkers like to drink too… Scholars and poets like Dylan Thomas and Charles Bukowski. Not to mention the notable barroom bard Wynonie Harris. Before you go searching for the collected writings of Mr. Harris, understand that most of his poetry remains criminally ignored and undocumented. But RCR did manage to find this recorded evidence of his urbane and erudite witticisms – a loving tribute to the timeless vessel from which all wisdom flows. Quiet Whiskey/Wynonie Harris

No matter how much you try to dress them up with ferns, plasma screens and Purell dispensers, most bars remain highly democratic institutions. And none of them are immune to the occasional fight breaking out. Especially when O’Reilly’s at the bar. Must’ve been some character Dan Hicks came across when he was playing Bay Area clubs back in the late ‘60s with his band the Hot Licks. You can’t really blame O’Reilly for wanting to smash someone’s face – the guy stole his beer, for chrissakes! And assaulting a beer thief is a pardonable offense here in the Rubber City. O’Reilly at the Bar/Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

Well, it’s closing time for this here missive – and obviously I’ve had a little too much to drink myself… so I’ll leave you with this six-pack to go:

A guy who plays a “guit-steel” double neck guitar is bound to apply the same dualism to other things, like party lights… Party Lights/Junior Brown

In our last drinking song post, we featured Ted Hawkins’ powerful version of There Stands The Glass. This one’s just as good… Happy Hour/Ted Hawkins

Sometimes, a great drinking song is simply a tribute to one’s favorite brand of booze (with Keith Richards on guitar and background vocals)… Tanqueray/Johnnie Johnson

I’m not from Texas, but I can’t resist a lyric like this: “Too much rum and rodeo got the better of your cowboy soul.” Rum & Rodeo/Heather Myles

Before O’Reilly hit the bar, there was this tune by New Orleans musical wizard Dave Bartholomew. Apparently, beer thievery is a serious crime problem… Who Drank My Beer While I Was In The Rear/Dave Bartholomew

Hank Thompson recorded the original back in ’52, but I think I prefer this version by rockabilly wildman Charlie Feathers… Wild Side of Life/Charlie Feathers

Here’s visual evidence that Dinah Washington knew how to deal with a man gone astray…

Centrists red and blue are expected to take a beating at the polls today. But it won’t be for lack of effort on the part of the Stewart-Colbert Nation, which seemed to be fully represented on the National Mall last Saturday at the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.”

I was there with wife Laura and brother James, and I can’t even tell you with great certainty why we went. Politically, I’d describe myself as slightly left of center, and although I’ll occasionally defect in favor of a reasonable Repub, I tend to vote mostly Democrat. In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, author and political pundit Garry Wills drew a hard line with this quote: “You may like a person who is Republican, but if you vote for that person, you’re voting for all the apparatus that comes along with it.” I can’t say I’m there yet, but I can understand the sentiment given the Republican Party’s recent efforts to embrace its wackiest citizens.

So although I was leaning toward going, I was still uncomfortable with the thought of joining a couple hundred thousand people in one location, no matter how noble the cause. And any misgivings I had about the trip appeared to be confirmed when our flight to D.C. was delayed for two hours due to a terrorist threat.

Still, we arrived without a hitch at BWI and caught the first train to the Capital, where the spirit of “reasonableness” seemed alive and well – at least for one weekend. In the end, it felt good to be part of an event that thumbed its collective nose at the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the true purveyors of fear at Fox News.

If there was a unifying force at this gathering, it was a shared aversion to political bullies of any stripe (“Use your indoor voice” read one of the better signs). Beyond that, a sense of cartoon-like anarchy carried the day, which made the event seem more like a Tea Party gathering – without all that right-wing doomsday rhetoric.

Jon Stewart said it best at the close of the rally: “We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV.”

So in the best spirit of the rally, I’ll let James’ photos describe what it was like to share the mall with a fairly respectful mob of people who generally agree that President Obama is not Hitler… and that grandma’s fate won’t be determined by a Death Panel. A Apolitical Blues/Little Feat

All photos by James Quine.