In the last issue of Rolling Stone magazine, I was described as the “blues snob uncle” of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. At first, I took great umbrage to this (how’s that for a snobby-ass word?). But then I went back and re-read this piece from two years ago and I thought, guilty as charged. The original post included a nice comment from Dan: “got love if you want it is so amazing… i’m ashamed to say, it took me way too long to get into Excello. i should have just trusted you from the get go tim. always loved lonesome sundown though. besides tav falco, that’s my favorite stage name ever.” Whispering Smith ain’t bad either.

I’m a blues hound… won’t deny it. Love the form’s many sub-genres and permutations. Hate most attempts to slap a little rouge on its cheeks and make it more presentable to the masses. You can have your Jonny Langs and Keb Mos. Give me John Lee Hooker, alone with his guitar – and please find a way to remove all those special guest artists from his final recordings.

On more than one occasion, I’ve run into a distinguished-looking gentleman wearing one of those painfully casual outfits who claims to love blues too. But he’ll offer this information in a very solemn and private way, like he’s confessing he has a family of illegal aliens living in his basement.

Fact is, he’s told me nothing… Did he just see B.B. King at the outdoor amphitheater while getting hammered on cosmos with Buffy, Bif and Lillian? Or does he like to drink bottom-shelf liquor by himself and listen to the stream-of-consciousness blues that Robert Pete Williams recorded in Angola Prison? Doesn’t make much difference to me what he likes… I just think that extra bit of information would be helpful before we continue the conversation.

As Duke Ellington pointed out, “There’s two kinds of music: good and bad.” So it goes with blues – there’s a lot to like and almost as much to avoid. And I try to judge all comers on their own merits. I don’t knock Robert Cray for trying to sound like the second coming of Stax-Volt. Some of his best stuff comes close enough. But don’t bring me any of Clapton’s last 20 or so releases, and if you buy me Buddy Guy’s latest for my birthday, save the gift receipt.

The real reason I stick with the form is the universe of expression within it. You’ve got your city blues and country blues… hard-driving Chicago blues and laid-back Piedmont blues… full horn sections and one guy with a mic… fife and drum bands from the Mississippi hill country… flame-throwing guitar slingers from Texas… piano pounders from New Orleans and Kansas City… shouters… crooners… howlin’ at the mooners… maybe there’s a blues song in there somewhere?

Which brings us in a very roundabout way to one of my favorite sub-genres, swamp blues. Before I came across this mutant form, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of blues. I had faithfully purchased and analyzed the Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson box sets, viewed the “Live at Newport” videos, read the books, even learned a few of the songs myself… Then Slim Harpo came along, openly mocking my earnest attempts to become a blues scholar.

At this point, it’s probably useful to ask, what is swamp blues? First, it’s a form of Louisiana music that should not be confused with the state’s other vital and distinct contributions to American music – including Dixieland, New Orleans R&B, Cajun and Zydeco. Second, it’s largely the product of a small studio in Crowley, Louisiana, where one J.D. “Jay” Miller created regional hits for the Excello label, run by Ernie Young in Nashville. In other words, another one of those haphazard cultural collisions that makes Southern roots music so damn good.

Swamp blues is what you’d expect when a self-taught producer reinvents the dominant Chicago sound in a small Louisiana town – lazy, loping rhythms, casually soulful singing, and a do-it-yourself approach to recording technology (or lack thereof). Check out this cardboard-box rhythm on a tune by Lightnin’ Slim: Mean Old Lonesome Train/Lightnin’ Slim

Many artists made the pilgrimage to Louisiana rice country to record at Miller’s Crowley studio, including a small army of curiously named bluesmen like Mr. Calhoun, Shy Guy Douglas, Whispering Smith, Guitar Gable and Boogie Jake. Miller also launched the careers of several outstanding blues women – most notably the great piano player Katie Webster, who did session work on legendary swamp blues and pop recordings like Phil Phillips’ 1959 hit, “Sea of Love.” Here’s Katie with her own take on the hit… Sea of Love/Katie Webster

Crowley today: "Where Life is Rice and Easy!"

Let me get right to the point, by sharing with you a short list of my favorite swamp blues recordings (samples at the end for your listening pleasure):

Slim Harpo: I Got Love If You Want It. This tune seems to encompass everything that’s right and wonderful about swamp blues. I’m not sure how to describe the rhythm – it’s like the second-grade teacher gave the kids a few shakers and sticks and asked them to play a mambo. Then there’s the harp, which ain’t Little Walter but makes one hell of a statement at the opening. The acoustic-sounding guitar serves only one purpose – to move the song from I to IV to V. And Harpo’s voice brings it all together with his usual, laconic delivery. A blues masterpiece.

Lightnin’ Slim: It’s Mighty Crazy. John Hammond Jr. did a great version of this song back in ’75, but the original can’t be beat. Miller’s Cajun background must’ve led him to suggest the rub-board rhythm. Lazy Lester gives the tune its signature riff. And Slim’s gritty voice adds just enough menace to make you wonder just what he’s rubbin’ on. I think we all know it’s something other than a good scrub in the bathtub.

Lonesome Sundown: My Home is a Prison. Apparently, Miller liked the opening guitar riff to this song – it shows up on several other cuts by Lonesome Sundown (aka Cornelius Green). Sundown played guitar for Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier before joining Miller’s stable of artists in 1956. Released the following year, this tune is about as blue as blue can get… “It’s true I shot my baby, but it’s because she did me wrong. The only thing I got is this lonesome jail I call home.” Maybe Sundown was haunted by the dark muse behind this song… He eventually became a minister in the ecumenically named Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith Fellowship Throughout the World Church.

Lazy Lester: I Hear You Knockin’. Not to be confused with the New Orleans nugget by Smiley Lewis that adds the line “but you can’t come in.” This is one of those blues songs with near-universal appeal, easily making the transition to rock and honky tonk (check out Dwight Yoakam’s version from “Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room”). Sounds like the rhythm section consists of that same cardboard box they used on Mean Old Lonesome Train. Legend has it that Lester met Lightnin’ Slim on a bus and talked his way into a recording session at the Crowley studio. We can all be thankful for that conversation.

“Rockin” Tabby Thomas: Hoodoo Party. The New Orleans influence is especially strong on this cut by Tabby Thomas, father of contemporary blues artist Chris Thomas King and former owner of Tabby’s Blues Box and Heritage Hall in Baton Rouge, LA. Great rhythm and horn part, and Tabby’s fine voice is practically swimming in Miller’s patented reverb. Louisiana blues doesn’t get any better than this – a testament to Miller’s genius in the studio.

Jerry “Boogie” McCain: She’s Tough. Jerry’s girl is so hot, she walks through campus and “professor lose his mind.” But she can’t hold a match to McCain’s blazing harp, which sounds like it could burn the whole place to the ground. McCain obviously inspired the Fabulous Thunderbirds, who included this song on their 1979 debut. And the pride of Gadsden, Alabama, is still playing the blues today. You can check him out at the city’s annual Jerry McCain Broad Street Blues Bash (now that’s how you honor a blues legend!). I Got Love If You Want It It’s Mighty Crazy My Home Is A Prison I Hear You Knockin’ Hoodoo Party She’s Tough

I should’ve included this in the first post… great clip of The Rolling Stones playing Slim Harpo’s Shake Your Hips (but without Mick on harp). Filmed live inside the Rialto Theater in Montreux, Switzerland – May 21, 1972, right after the release of the Stones’ classic “Exile on Main St.”:

“A lot of people think the blues is depressing, but that’s not the blues I’m singing. When I’m singing blues, I’m singing life. People that can’t stand to listen to the blues, they’ve got to be phonies.” RIP, Etta James (check here for a great blues cut by Etta).

The Storey Sisters in Cleveland, April 1958 (Photos by Tommy Edwards)

(Listen to Eddie Cochran while you read.)

Start with a good mystery. Then throw in some intimate and revealing images from the early years of rock ‘n roll. Therein lies the beauty of “1950s Radio in Color: The Lost Photographs of Cleveland Deejay Tommy Edwards” – a spellbinding book by songwriter, musician and music historian Christopher Kennedy, as well as a new exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum that runs through the summer.

The story behind these photographs combines a little intrigue with a lot of luck. Eight years ago, Kennedy began searching for one of the Holy Grails of rock – a movie short called “The Pied Piper of Cleveland” that includes early (pre-fame) footage of Elvis Presley taken during his first tour outside of the south. The movie was produced by Cleveland DJ Bill Randle as a way to document his own role in promoting rock ‘n roll.

Randle was an intense rival of fellow DJ Edwards, another noteworthy figure in the Cleveland music scene (both Randle and Edwards plied their trade at WERE-AM). But Randle had the good sense to put competitive jealousies aside and feature Edwards in the film as the first DJ in Cleveland to recognize Presley’s unique talents.

As Kennedy dug deeper into the history of the film (which remains missing), he became more interested in Edwards’ reputation as a devoted chronicler of all things rock ‘n roll. First of all, Edwards’ vivid photos – compiled in Kennedy’s book along with the author’s wry commentary – provide an inside look at some of the early stars of rock, country, hillbilly and pop as they made their career-building pilgrimages to WERE and Cleveland-area nightclubs. Second, he created a weekly, two-page newsletter that provides historical context to these images and the music business in general during the mid- to late-‘50s. Here’s a taste from the “T.E. Newsletter” (dated Sept. 2, 1955):

“Eileen Rodgers opens at the Alpine Village here on the 5th —– Johnny Van does the Cabin Club here this weekend to be followed by Laurie Anders —– Nat Cole’s next is FORGIVE MY HEART —– Gene Davis now working in Dayton — formerly here in Cleveland and Akron —- My new hobby is taking pictures of all stars who come in to visit on the show —– R & B TUNES TO WATCH: I’M SO GLAD, Mickey & Sylvia; IT’S OBDACIOUS, Buddy Johnson; IT’S YOU, YOU, YOU, The Charms.”

In the preface to his book, Kennedy describes some of the side trips that led him to the photos and the only surviving copy of every issue of the “T.E. Newsletter” – now safely housed in the Rock Hall’s Library and Archives. He befriended Edwards’ nephew, Keith Winters, who helped him locate the slides; and a separate detour led him to the newsletters, which Randle gave to Cleveland journalist David Barnett as a gift (bear with me… these artifacts made their way through a whole cast of characters).

Winters initially notified Kennedy about five Ektachrome slides he received from his father, Edwards’ half-brother Gerald Winters. These included an iconic shot that seems to capture a passing of the torch from an elder Bill Haley to Elvis, whose career was on the rise as Haley’s tailed off. Kennedy assumed the five slides were the only ones that survived, but then he found the motherlode.

“My discovery of Tommy Edwards’ small cache of photos was a nice coup for a novice rock ‘n’ roll detective but it was nothing compared to what was to come,” Kennedy writes. “Within a few weeks of our first communications, I receive an excited, late-night call from Keith, who asked if I’m sitting down. While looking for Christmas decorations, he found treasure stashed away under a basement workbench: several dusty cardboard boxes with the family name ‘Mull’ (Edwards was born Thomas Edward Mull) handwritten on the sides, containing 1,790 more slides. Gerald Winters had, in fact, inherited all of his deceased half-brother’s photographs. Sometime around 1988, Gerald gave the slide collection to his son… Keith simply had forgotten about them.”

As the book and exhibit reveal, the Edwards collection is an embarrassment of riches. I wouldn’t call Edwards a master photographer, but he definitely had a knack for capturing images that were strikingly honest and unvarnished. He also found a perfect use for his images, featuring them in slide shows at the many record hops he’d host throughout the area. Did Edwards create the first multi-media rock show?

Chuck Berry at Gleason's Musical Bar, August 1955

The above photo of a 28-year-old Chuck Berry seems like it was shot in the basement of one of those ethnic social clubs you can find throughout Cleveland. It actually was taken at Gleason’s Musical Bar, a popular club on Cleveland’s east side (E. 55th and Woodland) from 1942 to 1962. Virtually every major blues and jazz act you can think of from the era came through Gleason’s – James Brown, Bo Diddley, B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole… This photo shows Berry with local sax star Sammy Dee, founder and leader of the house band for the show Bandstand (before it became American Bandstand).

In 1958, Johnny Cash came through town long enough to plop himself down on the couch at WERE studios to visit with Edwards. “Less than comfortable must be Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, walking the floor back in Memphis, justifiably paranoid about the clandestine deal Cash has struck with Columbia Records to leave Sun as soon as contractually possible,” Kennedy notes in his book.

That same year, rocker Eddie Cochran stopped by Cleveland to promote his new single Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie. More from Kennedy: “A rock ‘n’ roll star with smoldering sex appeal; an innovative guitarist, songwriter, and music producer; international touring act and budding movie star – the kid’s got it all. Except time.” Two years later, Cochran died in England when he was thrown from a taxi in a high-speed crash. Rockabilly star Gene Vincent (another subject of Edwards’ camera) survived the accident with minor injuries, but his glory days were mostly behind him.

Eddie Cochran, January 1958

Edwards eventually became the proprietor of Record Heaven in Cleveland’s Brooklyn neighborhood before passing away in 1981. Kennedy continues to search for Bill Randle’s long-lost treasure, “The Pied Piper of Cleveland.” I’ll definitely pay more attention at local garage sales, but the smart money’s on the guy who already delivered the goods with the lost photographs of Tommy Edwards.

Thirty-two images from Edwards’ collection are now showing in the Baker Gallery of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s Main Exhibit Hall. Check the Museum’s website for more information.

So who, you might ask, are The Storey Sisters? Hailing from Philadelphia, sisters Ann and Lillian helped pioneer the “girl group” sound that paid off in the Sixties for acts like The Shirelles, The Shangri-Las and The Ronettes. This smokin’ little number from 1957 features NYC session guitarist Wild Jimmy Spruill, who had the distinction of appearing on two #1 hits in May ’59: The Happy Organ by Dave “Baby” Cortez and Kansas City by Wilbert Harrison.

Psychedelic rock: I know I shouldn’t try to boil down an entire sub-genre of music into a few sentences. But here’s my take on psych rock.

First and foremost, it changed my life – starting with the moment I first heard Jimi Hendrix coming from the tiny speakers of my transistor radio (a mind-blowing event that I covered here). There was no denying the power of the opening riff to Purple Haze. Just two notes, like a siren’s blare. And rock ‘n roll would never be the same. Purple Haze

I eventually got a Heathkit POS (piece of shit) stereo and kept it tuned to WMMS in Cleveland, where DJs like Billy Bass (“the classical gas, the man with the special stash”) turned me on to Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Doors and other heavy bands from the late-‘60s. But eventually psych rock lost its appeal… and the best way to explain this is by looking at the changes that took place at roughly the same time in the Catholic Church.

You see, the Latin Mass I remember as a child was all about mysterious ritual (brightly colored vestments, odd choreography, ornate dinnerware), exotic sounds (Latin, Gregorian chanting), intoxicating fragrances (incense) and a solemn act of communion (Communion). Then, almost overnight, most of those grand mysteries were replaced with shiny happy teenagers singing crappy folk songs. At that point I knew exactly what was going on – the church was pandering to me, and I wasn’t buying it.

Essentially the same thing happened with psych rock: mysterious ritual (Morrison the Lizard King, Hendrix the Fire God, Janis the Whiskey-Swilling Earth Mother), exotic sounds (said opening to Purple Haze), intoxicating fragrances (weed) and a solemn act of communion (smoking of weed)… All of it was eventually co-opted by ad campaigns straight from Madison Avenue and lame-ass TV shows like The Partridge Family and Laugh-In. I wasn’t buying that crap either. But the music lives on, along with a few choice videos from the era.

I love the fact that early purveyors of psych rock, like Roky Erickson and the Austin-based 13^th Floor Elevators, somehow snuck past Dick Clark’s Vanil-O-Meter and made their way onto American Bandstand. Here’s a great clip of the Elevators attempting to lip synch their way through You’re Gonna Miss Me… Apparently they were just a couple tabs of acid from a perfect take.

Here’s another clip from Cleveland’s entry into the Bandstand sweepstakes, Upbeat. This segment from ’68 features The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, notable for the fact that Page is faking Jeff Beck’s recorded solo. It’s another one of those trippy collages that cropped up way too often during the Sixties (although singer Keith Relf looks very groovy during the guitar solo).

It’s hard to find a better artifact from the era than Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 appearance on The Smothers Brothers Show, where they performed White Rabbit and Somebody to Love. First of all, White Rabbit remains one of the best examples of psychedelic rock – a wonderful stew of thinly veiled drug references, moody minor chords over a quasi-bolero beat, Jorma Kaukonen’s snaky guitar, and that amazing voice (to me, Grace Slick will forever be 28 years old). Second, the Smothers Brothers were a surprisingly subversive force on Sixties TV as they continually battled with CBS network censors over skits that took on, among other issues, racism and the Vietnam War. But their main stock in trade, of course, was being silly – in a mildly anarchic way. Those of you of a certain age will recognize Dick Smothers’ comment about “smoking a banana,” which at the time was rumored to give you a cheap high (never tried it, so I can’t confirm). And the visuals on these clips are vintage Sixties… There must be something inherently disorienting about tiny people floating in an oil lamp.

I’d be remiss if we didn’t include the godfathers of psych rock, the Grateful Dead. And this lengthy clip from Playboy After Dark (1969) is mind-blowing in several respects. Let’s start with the segment up front, as Hef and a few other well-scrubbed dandies (or “beautiful people,” as someone hissed in a youtube comment) “rap” with Jerry Garcia. I love Garcia’s description of the two-drum attack: “It’s like the serpent that eats its own tail, and they go around and around like that, and if you can stand in between them… they make figure eights on their sides in your head.” I think Hef’s intended response was “eh, that’s great, Jerry… let me go fetch another martini.” But mainly, this encounter reflects the whole co-opting process I mentioned earlier. I’m not suggesting that the Dead sold out by showing up at the Playboy Mansion. Hey, it was a simple business decision – and probably a good one, which is why the band stuck around for another 25 years.

You might want to pass on the first number, Mountains of the Moon… pretty dreadful. Pick it up at around 7:10 as the Dead launch into one of their signature freak-outs, St. Stephen. One more sidebar: You’ll notice the relative lack of dancers – unavoidable in most “After Dark” videos (although the St. Stephen clip includes the ghostly image of an unrecognizable soul man gyrating throughout). That’s because you’d probably need a tab or two to dance along to the song’s constantly shifting time signatures.

Of course, psych rock never really went away. But it sure seemed a lot less relevant to pimply faced teenagers in the Seventies (like me) who spent way too much time dazed and confused, listening to good old-fashioned crotch-rock from the Midwest and across the pond. Bands like Grand Funk Railroad, The James Gang, Free, Humble Pie, Savoy Brown, Foghat… riff-heavy bands that rarely strayed from the pocket and left the noodling to the experts, like Sonny Rollins. Mark, Don and Mel (need I say more?) first showed up at the Playboy Mansion right after the Dead, in ’69. But they seemed to come from an entirely different time and place. Note the return of the After Dark Dancers, looking fairly ridiculous on the stairs.

Let’s say I did psychedelic drugs… I doubt the trippy videos from the Sixties would raise my consciousness. But this one would earn me a trip to see Nurse Ratched.

Just picked up a good read about the troubled marriage of rock and the boob tube: “TV a-Go-Go” by Jake Austen (producer of a cable-access children’s dance show that airs in Chicago). Austen traces the roots of rock on TV back to Bo Diddley’s first (and last) appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, on Nov. 20, 1955. Bo was told by the show’s producers to play Tennessee Ernie Ford’s hit Sixteen Tons. He later noted in his biography “Living Legend” that he deferred instead to his label, Chess Records, which was hoping to break a hit with the song Bo Diddley: “Chess tol’ me that if I’da did Sixteen Tons and not Bo Diddley, that would have been the end of my career right there.” Bo snubbed the producers and played his namesake single, which earned him a lifetime ban from America’s most popular variety show:

As Austen points out, the most remarkable thing about the video is the last 55 seconds as Bo became “intimately engaged with his guitar – a guitar with a distorted, damaged tone that sang like a human being in a voice simultaneously joyous and mournful. Diddley was rock ‘n roll’s first guitar hero.” Far more viewers watched Elvis the following year on the same show, but the King’s mild renditions of Don’t Be Cruel and Love Me Tender couldn’t match the power of Bo and band in ’55.

By the end of the decade, Dick Clark had built a financial empire around a show that served as the prototype for virtually every music-related program that followed: American Bandstand. Clark is often blamed for polluting the airwaves in the late ’50s and early ’60s with the sappy sounds of teen idols like Fabian and Frankie Avalon – a trend that benefited his Philadelphia-based business interests and cronies. But Austen notes that Bandstand gave birth to a whole slew of worthy imitators, including shows like Shindig, Hullabaloo and, starting in ’71, Soul Train. And let’s hand it to the ageless one for featuring a long list of garage bands on Bandstand and its eventual spin-off, Where the Action Is, which featured bands lip-synching at various outdoor locations (mostly beach-related). Here Music Machine mimes their hit Talk Talk at what appears to be a zoo:

Speaking of lip synching, Austen is fairly forgiving of this hoary showbiz tradition. Given the technical limitations of most Sixties’ TV studios (and outdoor locations), it was difficult to accommodate multiple bands and their equipment in one session. “If no one had lip synched there would have been no guests on those shows,” Austen points out. Many of these mimed performances serve as historical documents of artists ranging from Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones. Austen also notes that some of the better artists – like James Brown and, later, Michael Jackson – turned lip synching into an art form. He singles out Brown’s dazzling footwork during a solo take on Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag (seen here) – a mic-less performance on Shindig that enabled the show’s producers to “create a powerful, original visual statement instead of focusing on being ethnographic rockumentarians capturing a ‘real’ live performance.”

Even some of the band-less moments have their unique pleasures… Those of you who have a taste for the truly bizarre will enjoy this Bandstand clip from 1966 as Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) calls in to answer some questions and introduce his cover of the Willie Dixon tune Diddy Wah Diddy (“Who thought of the name of the group?” “I thought of the Captain Beefheart and the rest of the group thought of The Magic Band”).

American Bandstand also should be credited for spawning countless regional music shows, like The !!!! Beat (filmed in Nashville, broadcast in Dallas, and featured in our recent post on Gatemouth Brown), The Buddy Deane Show in Baltimore (inspiration for John Waters’ movie and Broadway musical Hairspray), and Upbeat in Cleveland. Austen describes Cleveland as “one of the great TV rock towns,” with Upbeat serving as a first-rate example of regional rock ‘n soul programming. I remember being captivated by the show as a kid and even admiring Upbeat’s slick and cheery host, Don Webster. And if there’s better footage from the show than this live performance of Otis Redding and band tearing through Can’t Turn You Loose, you need to send it my way. (Historical footnote: Redding’s ’67 appearance on Upbeat occurred the day before the plane crash that took his life.)

Given its many studios and vibrant music scene, LA gave rise to the most Bandstand-like programs in the country – Shivaree, Shebang and Groovy, to name a few. Here’s sort of a hybrid performance from Shivaree, with The Byrds singing live over a prerecorded backing track. This segment was hosted by Frankie Avalon and broadcast on May 8, 1965, only three days after the band’s TV debut. Interesting tidbit from “mcd220″ for you Byrdmaniacs out there: ‘If you listen carefully, you can hear Gene Clark’s baritone vocal part in the second chorus during ‘In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you.’ This part was NOT on the record; reason being is that Gene’s vocals were on the same track as Leon Russell’s electric piano, which was taken out of the mix.”

If you’ve got about eight minutes, you’ll want to check out this treasure trove of soul music from Shindig – great footage (both live and otherwise) of James Brown, Tina Turner and Booker T and the MGs:

Next up: The agony/ecstasy of psychedelic rock on TV.

As we approach the end of 2011, some of you might be looking at various ways to shake things up in the coming year. Maybe take a few dance classes, learn how to cook with a wood-burning stove, turn that toolshed into a bitchin’ mancave, recycle that oxy you found in grandpa’s bathroom…

I tend to be a little more realistic. It’s hard enough dealing with the day-to-day challenges of making ends meet with a dwindling paycheck. Why complicate matters by trying to reinvent yourself? The craziest thing I’ve done in recent years is start this blog (which I view as the cornerstone of RCR’s burgeoning virtual empire… and my wife sees as “the thing that keeps you from fixing this goddam sink”). That slight reinvention should do me for the entire decade – or at least until End of Days (see #10).

This year, I prefer to simply express my gratitude for all the things that somehow went well in 2011. Let’s face it, plenty of things sure as shit went south. We lost Hubert Sumlin, Howard Tate, Dobie Gray, Amy Winehouse, Cesaria Evora, Manuel Galban, Doyle Bramhall, Gil Scott-Heron, Bert Jansch, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Clarence Clemons, Cornell Dupree, Pinetop Perkins, Melvin Sparks, Big Jack Johnson, Eddie Kirkland… and, in a way, Etta James, who’s in the final stages of leukemia and also suffers from dementia. Also, Fear Factor came back on the air – an event that surely was documented in Revelations. And Rick Perry’s still in the hunt. But let’s set aside those tragedies for now and focus instead on some positives from a year that needed every one of them.

1. 10 Years of Daptone Records. It’s reassuring to know that soul music – made the way god and James Brown intended – is alive and well in Brooklyn. But that’s just part of the story at Daptone. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of the label’s outstanding samplers. You’ll find everything from Afro-beat (Antibalas) to a capella gospel (“Como Now: The Voices of Panola Co., Mississippi”). Simply put, Daptone is an American treasure. Here’s to many more decades of fine, funky soul… and a whole lot more. Let’s celebrate the first 10 years with the queen of Daptone soul, Sharon Jones: Be Easy/Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
2. More Live Music on TV. Maybe I’m deluded, but it seems like I’m coming across more first-rate music programming on cable (not on the main broadcast networks, unless you count your favorite band’s performance on SNL, Letterman or Jimmy Fallon – and even then, you have to wade through a lot of crap to get there). In the course of a few days, I watched two great shows on Palladia – one featuring Radiohead (The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement) and a rebroadcast of My Morning Jacket on VH1 Storytellers. And although it only includes a few live performances, Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon was easily one of the most powerful and captivating rock docs I’ve ever seen (video below). Keep ‘em coming, cable gods!
3. The Return of Gillian Welch. It took Welch eight years to deliver a follow-up to her previous album, “Soul Journey.” But “The Harrow & The Harvest” was well worth the wait. Tunes like Scarlet Town and The Way It Goes capture Welch and her longtime musical partner David Rawlings at the top of their game – combining heavenly harmonies with Rawlings’ predictably stunning fretwork. I had the great pleasure of seeing the duo on tour in support of the new album… noticed a lot of local pickers watching Rawlings’ every move. But my favorite moment found him on banjo and harmonica as Welch hamboned and clogged her way through Six White Horses (video below). It seemed like a pure expression of joy, without pretense or artifice. In other words, many galaxies away from modern country.
4. The Black Keys Bust Loose. They started the year on a roll, and now they’ve conquered the world with their new album “El Camino.” As Brian van der Brug of the LA Times put it, “After something like 30-odd years of listeners’ declaring that rock had run out of steam, there’s something wonderfully weird about a drums-and-guitar duo riding swaggering blues-rock to the top, and it sounds even better.” Basically, it’s what happens when two unassuming and non-ironic dudes from Akron reinvent blues, soul, garage rock and a few other vital strains of American music, tour relentlessly, and spend countless hours honing their craft. I know, pouring Crystal over strippers sounds a lot more glamorous, but for these guys, it would just get in the way of the work. Money Maker/The Black Keys
5. Music Streaming Services Become More Competitive. And by competitive, I mean “free.” Actually, I’m not sure if this is a positive or a negative. Earlier this year, RCR teamed up with the MOG Music Network, which gave me access to their massive digital library. It’s pretty cool, but in some ways overwhelming. If you have 16 million+ songs at your fingertips, where exactly do you start? Playlists and Pandora-like streaming helps, but I get a little cranky when a song by Steve Earle is followed by American Pie or some other dreck. Fact is, they should just pay me to program their service (then they’d really be out of business!).
6. The Miami Heat Tanks. I know, I shouldn’t take pleasure in another team’s demise. But they sort of asked for it, didn’t they? I don’t even consider myself a LeBron hater. After all, he keeps coming back to our fair city to dole out money to various charities and play some hoops with his buddies. But it would’ve really pissed me off if the billion-dollar trio had realized their goal in Year One. The King will eventually get his Ring, but let him wait a few more years… builds character.
7. I Finally Visit Europe. You didn’t think I’d leave myself out of this, did you? I should be embarrassed to admit that at fifty-(cough) years, I’d never made it to Europe. But I fixed that in June when I flew to Berlin with my wife (hobbled by a knee injury) and daughter. We spent a few days in Chemnitz, a former car manufacturing center that was practically destroyed by bombs in WWII and then partially rebuilt under Communist rule (the bartender at the hotel yearned for the good old days when the Russians would show up with wads of cash). Then we survived a wild night in Berlin with our friends at iCrates before heading over to Paris, where we joined throngs of other tourists staring at the Notre Dame Cathedral, the gardens of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph… Glad we went, not sure we’ll be back any time soon. Aaah, the ennui…
8. I Got Hooked on Justified. For this, I blame my sister Mary. It seems to me that few shows capture the nuances of life below the Mason-Dixon Line better than Justified. There’s nothing even remotely hip about the show – other than maybe the theme song by Gangstagrass with T.O.N.E.-Z: Long Hard Times to Come Just solid storylines with some fine acting (including a well-deserved Emmy for Margo Martindale, who scared the shit out of me as Mags Bennett, the matriarch of a very twisted crime family from Harlan County). And it’s all served up with a healthy dose of backwoods funk and filth. Still time to jump on board this crazy train… Season 3 starts on January 17 (FX).
9. Commodity Prices Rise as Dollar Weakens. Actually, I have no idea what this is all about… Just thought it was time for RCR to tackle one of the more important financial issues facing the nation. Done.
10. Last Full Year Before End Times. The 5,125-year Great Cycle of the Ancient Mayan Calendar ends on winter solstice, December 21, 2012 (at 11:11 a.m., to be precise). What does this mean? Is The Rapture near, or am I confusing the Mayans with a religious cult in Idaho? I think the best we can hope for is that we reconnect with the wisdom of nature, and Bravo cancels the next season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my family for sticking with me as I spend far too much time on dubious missives like this one. After all, what’s more important than the support of your loved ones? Even Charles Manson hears from his family this time of year… in the “extended” sense of the word, of course.

Kings of Leon perform Talihina Sky – after a solid minute of bitching…

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the 2011 Newport Folk Festival…

Writing about dead blues guys is a fairly thankless pursuit. I’ll do a post on someone like Pee Wee Crayton and hear crickets. And just when I’m ready to fold up my tent and leave this virtual campsite for good, in walks Amanda Zelina – better known through her stage persona, The Coppertone.

My introduction to The Coppertone was when she weighed in on our post on cover songs (“Don’t Play Me No Stormy Friggin’ Monday”). I was intrigued by the name, so I checked out her website and signed on as a fan right away. Since then, we’ve shared a few comments and recent musical finds via Facebook and Twitter. For example, Amanda turned us on to Alabama Shakes and Hanni El Khatib, and I think we got her listening to some Latin boogaloo.

I also recognized a kindred spirit when I came across this quote: “I was not about to be another one of those ‘technical’ blues players. In my opinion 90 percent of all contemporary blues players while I was growing up were white guys in khakis playing shitty renditions of The Thrill is Gone and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Pride and Joy. I was not about to attempt a career doing that shit. Fuck no.” Amen, sister… No wonder she liked our piece on bands that keep flogging the same old warhorses!

But mainly what we dig about The Coppertone – other than her obvious good looks and taste – is the otherworldly sound that comes out of her. Sort of a mix of primordial blues howl and ballsy, barroom indie rock (not the “too sensitive to live” variety). First of all, she plays some damn nasty guitar – not at a Link Wray level of filth, but well on its way. And that voice… where the hell did that come from? It’s got plenty of rock ‘n roll attitude but just enough blues misery to make you wonder where all the bodies are buried. In other words, right up RCR’s dark, crime-ridden alley: Black Water

Let’s check in with Amanda so she can ‘splain herself…

T.Q.: You’re from King City, Ontario – a well-scrubbed community just north of Toronto… Not exactly a hotbed of roots music (hockey, maybe). What got you started down this road to ruination?

A.Z.: I am a late bloomer with music, so even though I grew up around my father who would saturate my ears with tunes, I never really fully found myself and surrendered to music until I moved away to California to learn guitar and got my ass kicked by John Lee… That’s when the real “ruination” begun (haha). What sparked it all at the very start? I’d say I owe a lot to the country… growing up with no one around who I spoke to. It’s an odd thing for people to grasp even now, the fact that I enjoy being close enough to the city (Toronto is about 40 mins away) but able to seclude myself out here. I think growing up with that molded who I became creatively. It really pushed me to fight boredom and as a result I have this very driven and strong-willed discipline when it comes to songwriting, playing guitar, singing etc. It instilled this sense of urgency in me at a very young age. I thought I had to learn as much as I could as fast as possible to get out of there and do something great. When I found a guitar kickin’ around the house at 18 it was all over… or should I say, all begun.

Dan tells me you’re a big Junior Kimbrough fan, and I’ve heard you wax poetic about the usual culprits, like John Lee Hooker. What are some of your other influences, both blues-based and otherwise?

Yea my favorites are definitely Junior and John. My other loves would be Elmore James, Wanda Jackson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, ZZ Top, BB King, Robert Johnson, Jack White, Anne Peebles, Al Green, Dan Auerbach solo as well as The Black Keys, The Stooges, David Bowie, Chuck Berry, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, FREE, Taj Mahal, Seasick Steve, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, SRV, George Thorogood, Otis Redding, The Temptations, Wilson Pickett, Sam Coffey, Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn etc. etc.

What are you locked into right now? I need a shot of something new and awesome.

Oh! I love doing this… I’m such a sucker for tipping off people on new tunes! Also for receiving them… thanks to your posts I’ve had quite a year of refreshing new material. Right now, I’m really into a few records in particular: Gozalo Bugalu Tropical Vol. 1 // Michael Rault, Ma-ME-O // Michael Kiwanuka, Tell Me a Tale // Daniel Romano, Sleep Beneath the Willow // The Dinner Belles, West Simcoe County // Sam Coffey and the Iron Lungs (self-titled) // Mariachi El Bronx, Mariachi El Bronx (II).

Thanks – already digging into Kiwanuka: Tell Me a Tale… I’ll pounce on that boogaloo collection next! I’ve been following you on Twitter, and you’re an obvious foodie (lots of iPhone shots of some sweet-looking meals). Kind of pisses me off, really. Do you have a food wrangler as part of your crew? And what are a few of your favorite eateries/dishes? 

Hahahaha, I am such a foodie! One of my goals is to be featured in some way on the Food Network. Luckily with touring I’ve had the opportunity to scout out and try some gems. I also have a lot of friends who are musicians and fellow foodies who point me in the right direction. My favorite cuisines would have to be Mexican (I live for great guac), Japanese, Vietnamese, and the odd Italian in there somewhere. To break it down here is a list of some of my favorite spots:

Ciccio pizza: Terroni

1) Terroni, Queen Street in Toronto… This place is unreal. I mainly always get their Mezzo e Mezzo platter, which is an antipasto plate. I can’t really eat a lot of lactose, but you only live once and I like splurging on quality. If you ever get a chance and are in town, go there – start with the Mezzo e Mezzo and a glass of Italian red… make your way to a mouth-watering main like their thin-crusted traditional pizzas… I love the Ciccio: folded pizza with prosciutto di parma, arugula, fresh tomatoes, fior di latte, served cold. Finish with their warm flourless chocolate cake… perfection! They also have this beautiful patio in the back for the summertime. I swear it’s like you’re transported right to Florence. Sometimes I’ll go and order a Spagiatto – translation: a mistake (a fav summertime drink of mine: Prosecco, Vermouth, Campari and a blood orange) – read a book and kick my feet up.

2) Golden Turtle, Ossington in Toronto … They kill it. It’s super cheap and super cramped all the time in there which adds to the dining pleasure.

3) The Merchant Tap House in Kingston Ontario. I went there to play a show and we got a free meal, which already makes the food taste better. I ordered this grilled tiger shrimp salad that came with chipotle seasoned potato wedges and had an avocado vinaigrette dressing. I swear to god I haven’t had a better salad in my life.

4) The Gratitude Cafe, Berkley California. I came across this gem while helping my sister move to Oakland. They only serve raw vegan food, gluten free or veggie dishes… which at first glance could make some people squeamish. But you wouldn’t miss the meat or lactose one bit. My favorite dish is called I Am Fortified (yes, if you haven’t got it by now the whole cafe is one big self-affirmation). It consists of sauteed seasonal vegetables, steamed Quinoa or local brown rice, topped with a choice of sesame-ginger, tahini-garlic or Thai almond sauce.

Coconut mango salsa salmon: The Royal

5) The Royal, Nelson B.C. We were playing on tour recently in the gorgeous mountains of Nelson and came across a menu that blew my mind. I got the coconut mango salsa salmon accompanied by a little tower of wild/basmati rice. Jesus spoke to me in my mouth that evening… Amen.

I could go on and on with this list… honorable mentions include the pineapple shrimp quesadilla at Amigos in Saskatoon.

The road can get a little boring… What are you reading to help you get through those long drives across Ontario?

This time around I brought a copy of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. It’s a short and poetic read and I have honestly read it hundreds of times. There is something about it that grounds me, so whenever I hit the road and become transient I make sure to grab it. Also, I’ve been known to (and been made fun of) for bringing along books on marketing or advertising. I have no clue why but I LOVE that stuff. Also, self-improvement books (haha) pseudo spiritual/psychological reads. I find them fascinating. I grew up with a very spiritual mom and a psychiatrist as a dad so I have always been drawn to finding that middle ground. Learning about body language, the power of thoughts and intentions, communication etc. is really rewarding to me.

You’re into vintage sounds and the kind of equipment that can get you there. Tell all our gearheads out there what you’re playing with (and through)…

Oooooo okay! Well… my primary setup for the past two years has been my 50th Anniversary gold Airline run through a Fender twin using a Fulltone Soul-Bender for my fuzz. That trio is basically my tone. I also love my 1482 Silvertone Sears amp… the trem on that thing is ridiculous. Most recently (thanks to Dan) I picked up an old Shin-ei Fuzz Companion that rules. I also use an old Electro-Harmonix Memory Man for my delay.

Seems like you’re about ready to bust loose… What’s it going to take? Anything on the horizon you can share with us?

Haha well thanks! Your guess is as good as mine. I’m a pretty firm believer in the old-school mentality of you reap what you sow (if you have talent and half a brain). That being said I’ve been putting myself to the grind for the past few years and am starting to finally see the slow and steady growth, which is amazing. The new year is really exciting for me… there’s a lot to look forward to. First on the map is going into the studio and recording a new full-length, hopefully at the end of January. I know come March we are headed to SXSW, which is pretty awesome. We’ve got a handful of festivals to nail and really just aiming to play as much as humanly possible. I love traveling and meeting new people, winning over new crowds. My goal for 2012 is to record a solid record and tour the hell out of it… and hopefully if I have anything to do with it, find some killer eats along the way.

Any plans on bringing your tough little band to NE Ohio??

I sure as hell hope so.

Test drive The Coppertone’s four-song EP, “Hymns for the Hollow,” at the coppertone.com, or buy it below. 

The Coppertone on video… Just in case you were wondering if Amanda could deliver the goods live (“Matthew” tagged this on the end of a comment below; I liked it so much I moved it up here):

Here’s a rockin’ little number from “Hymns”:

And here Amanda talks about her previous album, “Hidden Dreams” (this clip is from the Wood and Wires Video Series):

Hard to believe, but it’s time for RCR’s 3^rd annual Holiday Song Roundup (for those of you who need to catch up, pour yourself a little nog and ride these yule logs: Vol. 1, Vol. 2).

I should warn you up front that if you’re looking for the usual holiday-flavored confections by the likes of Michael Bolton, Susan Boyle and Sting (or Sphincter, as my bro-in-law calls him), you’ve come to the wrong place. We spend a lot of time at this site dissecting songs about drinking, cheating, murder and prison. We like our Christmas songs too – as long as they’re a short walk from John Lee Hooker or Big Mama Thornton. Save Amy Grant for the in-laws (and don’t get me started on that holly-jolly hairball Burle Ives).

We’ll kick things off with the Guru of Hoodoo, Dr. John, and one of our favorite albums: “Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack.” This outing from 1981 (accompanied by a second album released in ’83, “The Brightest Smile in Town”) captured the only solo sessions Dr. John ever recorded on piano. We covered those sessions in this post but neglected to feature Mac’s spirited take on Silent Night. It’s a keeper – which is probably why it showed up on the initial release. By the way, RCR is looking forward to Dr. John’s latest project, produced and recorded by nephew Dan at his Easy Eye Studio in Nashville. If their performance together at this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival was any indication, it should be another keeper. Silent Night/Dr. John

A lot of us aren’t very merry this Christmas. Times are hard. Jobs are scarce. And if you’ve got a job, you’re probably earning the same or less than you did a few years ago. Of course I’m speaking to those of you in the “99%” camp (I think we chased off our few 1% readers several posts ago). So if you don’t have any cash to spend on gifties and just aren’t in the mood for the usual holiday claptrap, you’ll probably appreciate this hard-bitten alternative from The Staple Singers, released on the Stax label in 1970. “Too busy fighting wars, trying to make it to Mars…” Hey, times were tough back then too, but at least we had enough money in the federal budget to consider space travel! Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas/The Staple Singers

Am I the only one bothered by the fact that many of our most treasured holiday songs were recorded in the balmy surroundings of Los Angeles? Think about it… Bing Crosby probably played a round of golf and had a couple of cocktails by the pool before laying down White Christmas in an air-conditioned studio. L.A. also served as the backdrop for the holiday classic Merry Christmas Baby by Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers, with the great Charles Brown on vocals and piano. Guitarist Moore tried several times to recreate the success of that number – even recruiting Brown soundalike Frankie Ervin for this blatant rip-off recorded in November ’55 (just in time for the holiday season). Who cares? I’ll take this over Michael Bublé’s Christmas any time of year. Christmas Eve Baby/Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers

Here’s another gem from the West Coast – this one by R&B pianist, bandleader and arranger Lloyd Glenn. The former Texan played on T-Bone Walker’s signature tune, Stormy Monday Blues, and contributed to some of B.B. King’s best recordings from the ‘60s. Sleigh Ride appears on the B side of a ’54 single on Hollywood Records. The A side? Merry Christmas Baby with Charles Brown. Which, of course, makes this little slab of vinyl essential for any desert-island jukebox (and required listening for all you holiday hipsters out there)… Sleigh Ride/Lloyd Glenn

There’s hip, and then there’s ahead of your time, like Rahsaan Roland Kirk. The Columbus, Ohio, native stunned audiences in the ‘50s by playing several horns at once – often using some fairly unconventional techniques (nose flute?). And he eventually perfected a “circular breathing” method that enabled him to play a flurry of notes (or even a single note) for long stretches of time without having to take a breath. Gimmicks aside, Kirk was a bold player with a wide-ranging style – sometimes lyrical, often searching and “outside.” You can hear it all in this stunning remake of an old Christmas favorite. Kind of gives new meaning to the phrase “star of wonder.” We Free Kings/Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Here’s a band that never registered on my “give a shit” meter… that is, until I came across this little Christmas cut-and-paste that also features fellow Canuck Sarah McLachlan. It didn’t make me change my mind about the rest of the Barenaked Ladies catalog. But apparently the band had some fairly serious musical chops to go along with its reputation as the nudge-winking blowhards of the ‘90s. I’ll give them 4 stars for coming up with this well-crafted and fairly swingin’ version of two classic carols that should’ve been jammed together a long time ago. And we’ll throw in another star for McLachlan, who typically spends the holidays ripping my guts out with that damn ASPCA commercial. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings/Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan

Big Jack Johnson (not to be confused with surfer-dude Jack Johnson or the famous boxer) was a master of the southern roadhouse blues tradition – that raw, earthy, greasy sound that found a home on the Fat Possum label in the early ‘90s. The guitarist and native of Lambert, Mississippi, teamed up with harp player Frank Frost and drummer Sam Carr in 1962 to form The Jelly Roll Kings (who also performed as The Nighthawks – not to be confused with the D.C.-based blues band). We featured the Frost standout My Back Scratcher in this post. Johnson eventually struck out on his own with his band the Oilers, and can be seen performing with Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Black Snake Moan. Johnson passed away in March, so consider this tune a holiday-flavored tribute to another fine bluesman who left us too soon: Jingle Bell Boogie/Big Jack Johnson

Any of you bother with New Year’s resolutions? You know, drink less, exercise more, spend less time blogging, give up Twitter… I’m considering all of those, but I’ll probably end up with another lame, vague promise to “be a better person.” The fact is, I’m fairly boring without the occasional drink or fascinating nugget that I find online. And my gym doesn’t have a bar or wifi, so I’m kind of screwed there. So I’ll just hang on to the same vices that helped me fend off a nervous breakdown in 2011 and all the other years I’ve spent in semi-adulthood. Which brings us to our last number, by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. “Baby let’s make promises that we can keep…” Now there’s a resolution that I can wrap my head around! New Year’s Resolution/Otis Redding & Carla Thomas

Man, what a rough month… R.I.P., Hubert Sumlin (seen here with the Wolf)…

R.I.P., Howard Tate…

R.I.P., Dobie Gray…

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Rolling Stone recently came up with another list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” The new list was compiled by “a panel of top guitarists and other experts” – including RCR supporter Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Steve Cropper, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Eddie Van Halen, James Burton, Carlos Santana, rock writer Peter Guralnick, RS contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, and many others. It follows up on a previous list assembled in 2003 by the magazine’s senior writer, David Fricke.

Both lists share some obvious choices – including the consensus #1 pick, Jimi Hendrix. And you don’t have to head too far down either list to find Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman and Jeff Beck, to name a few perennial favorites. But once you get past the first 20 or so picks, things get far more debatable and, in a few cases, downright puzzling.

Now I’ve never placed much value on “best of” lists, the Grammys, CMA Awards, blues competitions, battles of the bands, etc. etc. To me, ranking artists seems like a fairly useless and highly subjective exercise (ranking athletes, no problem – stats don’t lie). But if someone else is doing the ranking, I have every right to throw stones, don’t I?

I have three major problems with the new list (which made me want to call Dan and bitch, but he probably deserves some credit for Clarence White showing up at #52). My concerns are as follows:

1. No Robert Quine (#80 on Fricke’s list). My main problem here is that Lou Reed, not exactly an awe-inspiring stringbender (important in other respects, but not for his fretwork), shows up at #81. Keep in mind Reed, who had practically given up playing guitar, hired Rob back in ’82 to play on his critically acclaimed album “The Blue Mask.” And Rob goaded his boss into playing more guitar – with Reed quickly assuming a supporting role to his far-superior hired hand. After battling through two more albums and several tours with Reed, Rob went on to contribute to seminal recordings by Tom Waits (“Rain Dogs”), Marianne Faithfull (“Strange Weather”) and Matthew Sweet (“Girlfriend”), among others. For further evidence of this injustice, check out our Quine posts here and here.
2. No Danny Gatton (#63 on Fricke’s list). This is inexcusable. I’ve already made the case here that Gatton was simply the most amazing guitarist I’ve ever witnessed. Read it (and listen to the samples)… If you still don’t mind that John Frusciante (ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers) is taking a spot away from Gatton, then click here to exit site.
3. No Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (not on either list).

Unfortunately, this final indignity is just one of several heaped on Gatemouth both during and after his time on earth. Maybe it’s time to set the record straight (yeah, that’ll happen!) on one of the most effortlessly soulful and satisfying pickers of all time.

But first, another one of our “bio briefs” (this stuff is readily available elsewhere… no need for me to plagiarize): Born in Vinton, Louisiana – April 18, 1924… quickly moved to Orange, Texas…  learned to play fiddle from his multi-instrumentalist father… dubbed “Gatemouth” by a teacher, who claimed he had a voice like a gate (?)… played his first professional gigs as a drummer (with William H. Bimbo and His Brownskin Models, which belongs in the Band Name Hall of Fame)… switched to guitar when he was blown away by the great Texan T-Bone Walker in San Antonio… sat in with T-Bone’s band at a club in Houston – an impromptu performance that earned him a record deal with Don Robey, owner of the Peacock label. According to Gatemouth, he improvised this next tune on the spot including the opening line: “My name is Gatemouth Brown, just got in your town. If you don’t like my style, I will not hang around.” Gatemouth Boogie

Well, Gatemouth hung around for the next 48 years, recording for a number of labels and taking his distinctive brand of what he liked to call “American Music” (he hated the blues moniker) around the world several times.

I was first exposed to Gatemouth’s music during a trip to Austin in 1980, and I’ve been a fan ever since. In performance he was a revelation – playing fluid single-note runs that he’d punctuate with punchy chords that sounded like a full horn section (a style he reportedly landed on when he couldn’t afford to tour with horns). And those long, talon-like fingers – not a pick in sight – that would barely move as he burned through hyperactive showstoppers like Pressure Cooker and Flippin’ Out. He also played harmonica and was an exceptional fiddler, even contributing to the groundbreaking and Grammy-winning collaboration “Talking Timbuktu” with Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Toure: Ai Du

But Gatemouth’s greatest legacy remains the red-hot sides he recorded for Don Robey from 1947 to 1960. Much like fellow guitar shredder Pee Wee Crayton, Gatemouth came up with his own take on the elegant stylings of his mentor T-Bone – tougher, more visceral and far closer to the nascent sound of rock ‘n roll: Ain’t That Dandy

Here’s a rare blues fiddle workout he recorded in 1959 during one of his last sessions for Peacock: Just Before Dawn

The Peacock recordings alone should earn Gatemouth a spot on the “top 100” list. But his career took a number of interesting twists and turns over the next five decades. Those of you of a certain age might remember his legendary duels with country picker Roy Clark on the hit TV show “Hee Haw” (and the fine album “Makin’ Music,” an out-of-print treasure). And he asserted his dominance over a small army of contemporary blues wankers with several albums he recorded for the Rounder label in the ‘80s. Here’s a blistering cover of an Albert Collins original from Gatemouth’s 1981 Rounder debut and comeback of sorts, “Alright Again!” Frosty

One of my favorite latter-day Gatemouth releases was a Texas swing-flavored session from 1975, “Blackjack.” The album captures Gatemouth at his best, moving seamlessly from cajun fiddle stomps to fiery swing tunes that feature some mind-boggling interplay between Gate and pedal steel guitarist Don Buzzard. I especially like the title cut, which borrows heavily from a soul-jazz classic by Kenny Burrell but ends up as pure American music, Gatemouth-style: Blackjack

A few of Gatemouth’s final recordings lapse into some fairly listless and formulaic schtick (including one of those dreaded “guest artist” outings that somehow always involve Eric Clapton), but he’d long ago established his reputation as a true original and roots-music legend.

Gatemouth’s final years were difficult. Although he fought lung cancer and heart disease (he smoked for many years), he ultimately was a casualty of Hurricane Katrina. His home in Slidell, Louisiana, was destroyed by the storm – and even though he beat a retreat to his brother’s house in the familiar surroundings of Orange, Texas, he never recovered from the debacle.

“He was completely devastated,” said Rick Cady, Brown’s booking agent (AP story). “I’m sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I’m sure it weighed heavily on his soul.”

Gatemouth passed away in Orange on September 10, 2005, at the age of 81. At least he didn’t have to live through another snubbing by the list-makers at Rolling Stone.

Gatemouth doin’ the Okie Dokie Stomp – live on “The !!!! Beat” TV show (Dallas), 1966.

From the same show – Gatemouth and Freddie King doing a short version of Funky Mama…

Here’s Gatemouth throwing down on fiddle, circa 1990… Nice footage of black cowboys too. I think Gate’s prowess on fiddle – not to mention his eclecticism – actually worked against his legacy as a guitarist. Pisses people off when someone’s that good on two instruments and can cover so many different styles.

Back in the heyday of Cleveland rock radio, this wildman named Murray Saul – sounding a lot like Howard Dean when he blew up his campaign for President – would usher in the weekend with a full-throttle rant on WMMS-FM. Here’s a taste from one of the station’s TV commercials, circa 1975:

Typically, Saul would stick it to the “slavedrivers” who owned us all week at the office or factory. Of course, that was back when most of us had office or factory jobs. Today, Saul’s rants seem like quaint reminders of an era when 5 p.m. on Friday was something worth celebrating. If you’re lucky enough to have a job today, it’s probably one of three low-paying gigs that keep you working all weekend. If not, well, Friday is just another day to smoke weed and hone your Xbox skills while waiting for your mom to get home so you can borrow her car.

I sort of enjoyed the whole ‘MMS “Home of the Buzzard” schtick, even though I was turned off by much of the station’s hard-rock playlist (did we really need to hear Ian Hunter’s “Cleveland Rocks” every four hours?). Which led me to wonder, what if I were in charge of picking the song that would officially kick off a weekend of unholy activity? What homage to hell-raising would I unleash on the populace, whipping thousands of worker bees into a frenzy of drinking, drug use and other forms of debauchery? Sure as hell wouldn’t be anything by Loverboy (with all due respect to ‘MMS fans around the world).

In my alternate universe, it could easily be something by Southern Culture on the Skids. “I got eight slappin’ pistons ri’cheer under my hood”… kind of says it all, doesn’t it? Sure, “just wrap your legs round these velvet rims and strap your hands across my engines” is a pretty cool come-on for a lost weekend together. But here in the real world, you only have a few seconds to make the pitch. So I’ll defer to SCOTS frontman Rick Miller and his timeless ode to parking-lot dating. Besides, how can you resist a song that name-checks Tony Joe White and announces its presence with the mighty cowbell? Voodoo Cadillac

In honor of The Black Keys’ new release dropping on December 6, I’ll simply point out that my favorite song on the album could wreak havoc any night of the week. Unfortunately, I can’t sample the cut without getting sued by my nephew. So let’s go back to one of the band’s more overlooked efforts, “Magic Potion,” and a tune that’s destined for the Garage Rock Hall of Fame. By the way, where would one locate such an establishment? Maybe Boone County, West Virginia – home of the one-man garage band, the late Hasil Adkins… or how about Link Wray’s “Three-Track Shack” on the family farm in Accokeek, Maryland? RCR’s phone lines are open… Your Touch

Those of you who reside on more rural routes probably like to start the weekend with a healthy dose of twang. Forget about that overprocessed horseshit you hear on modern country radio. Let’s revisit a honky tonk classic and one of the great career launchers of all time – the very first cut from Dwight Yoakam’s debut on the Reprise label. Once again, cars play a key role (hard to spend a memorable weekend without one). And thankfully, the guitars are in the capable hands of Pete Anderson, who along with Dwight led the “Back to Bakersfield” movement in the mid-‘80s. If it’s possible to make hillbilly music hip, those two guys pulled it off with this one: Guitars, Cadillacs

So Friday night rolls around, you’ve put in your 40+ at work, the next two days are all yours… but it still doesn’t seem like you have anything to celebrate. You can always ease into the weekend with a little blues, Jimmy Reed-style. Might help you face the facts – like, for example, your boss is a dick and you don’t get paid squat. Maybe this tune and a little “liquid courage” will help you set things straight on Monday morning. Good luck with that. Big Boss Man

I can already predict the comments. “How can you get the party started without the Bubba anthem, Freebird?” Well, I’ve hung out with a few bikers over the years… spent an evening or two at a Bourbon-fueled bonfire… experienced the primordial forces within this storied ballad-cum-guitar throwdown. I get it. But I’d rather start the weekend with Lucinda Williams spreading her own brand of Joy. This tune has no use for a ballad-style opening. It jumps in with a snarl and then works itself into a barely controlled rage. Which is how most people feel after five days at a dead-end job. So don’t hire me as your Friday-night DJ if you’re trying to escape reality. Joy

What’s the best party ever thrown? Woodstock. What was the best performance at Woodstock? Santana, hands down. OK, Sly and the Family Stone gave them a run for their money. But to me, Santana playing Soul Sacrifice defines Woodstock. And I can’t believe Carlos played as well as he did, watching his guitar neck writhe like a snake while he was tripping on acid (which is only more discouraging for the rest of us who can barely play straight). If I were head of the Rock Police, all drum solos would have been outlawed after Michael Shrieve tore it up at Woodstock. That dude from Rush can whirl around all he wants – he can’t touch what Shrieve laid down in ’69 (video below).

Now that I’ve downplayed Sly’s performance at Woodstock, I have to admit that he came up with one of my all-time favorite Friday-night jams: Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin). How can you hear that deep groove kick in – fueled by Larry Graham’s funky bass – and not want to jump up and shake something? I’m pretty sure this song helped popularize that unfortunate dance known as The Robot. But I’m willing to overlook that (and the title) to place it at or near the top of my list of weekend kick-starters. Hell, you could put another four or five tunes by Sly on that list. In fact, just slap on his Greatest Hits and stand back – someone’s about to hit the switch on this ‘bot. Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

We’ll close by taking one step back from Sly and paying tribute to the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Forget about songs that build to a climax… This next tune starts with an explosion of sound and never lets up. The guy driving the beat is the original “Funky Drummer,” Clyde Stubblefield – someone who I’m sure didn’t miss Michael Shrieve’s attention back in the ‘60s. For a number of years, Stubblefield had a regular Monday-night gig at a small club in downtown Madison, Wisconsin (I understand he’s now ailing and in need of a new kidney… if anyone has an update on Clyde, set me straight). If you need the aural equivalent of a kick in the ass, bring this to the party and watch your backside. There Was A Time

Santana at Woodstock, with a 20-year-old Michael Shrieve. The only drum solo you’ll ever hear on this site. It’s been 42 years since this performance… Can any modern-day jam band touch this?

From the sublime to SCOTS… The wizards of white trash extol the many virtues of the Mojo Box:

(Click here, then read on.)

Mongolia… Mexico… Africa… Scandinavia… Rubber City Review travels the globe to bring you amazing and exotic sounds from far-away lands! From Tuvan throat-singing to Finnish disco, we offer a rare look at native peoples expressing their hopes, their fears, their joys, their tears… So climb aboard our special climate-controlled blimp as we take you on a journey you won’t soon forget, brought to you by Burma Shave: “When super-shaved, remember pard’ – you’ll still get slapped, but not so hard.”

Alright, got that out of my system. Didn’t feel like writing this week, so I was glad when my sister (Madame Auerbach) sent me a video of Mongolian throat singer and horse-hair fiddle player Bukhchuluun Ganburged serving up an otherwordly rendition of an old standard, Waltzing Matilda:

I’ve been on an African jag for a few months, and I keep coming back to Malian master Ali Farka Touré. Here’s a clip from one of his final performances, with fellow Malian Toumani Diabaté on kora and the late Orlando “Cachaito” López on bass. Deep African soul with a taste of Cuba. R.I.P., Ali and Cachaito…

This just in from Twitter: “That’s great, Tim, but when are you going to feature some Mexican surf-rock?” How about the Twin Tones – a band that I know absolutely nothing about, but they sure seem comfortable around some pretty cool vintage gear.

When in doubt, show one of the few existing videos of the world’s greatest Gypsy jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt – seen here lounging around with his longtime sidekick, violinist Stephane Grappelli and a few sleazeballs… er, fellow Hot Clubbers in a swank hotel before they take the stage at a nearby club.

Let’s close this out with a stirring tribute to white peoples everywhere – from a place that’s got plenty of ‘em, Finland. For this clip, you can blame our West Coast correspondent, Mike Matousek:

Here’s a tasty guitarist I lost track of a few years back. Then when I recently looked into his newer stuff – expecting to hear more variations on the rock-solid blues he recorded in the ‘90s – I was surprised to find out he’d reinvented himself as a 21^st Century Rastaman… in a very sincere and soulful way. Let’s put it this way – the California native didn’t slap on a reggae beanie and start chunkin’ so he could get a gig on a cruise ship.

My first introduction to Rusty Zinn was a fine album he recorded for the Black Top label back in ‘96: “Sittin’ and Waitin’.” It was produced by Fabulous Thunderbird Kim Wilson, who also sings and plays soaring harp on a few tunes. I pulled the album out of cold storage after listening to Steve Cropper’s tribute to The “5” Royales, “Dedicated” – which I liked, but felt Rusty did a better job covering the band with his gritty remakes of 30 Second Lover and this classic: Think

Rusty the bluesman

As you can tell, Zinn really didn’t need any help from Wilson in the vocals department. Although he started out as a sideman in the Bay Area for blues-based artists like Mark Hummel, Larry Taylor (Canned Heat) and Wilson, Zinn started singing in the ‘90s, probably in anticipation of a solo career. And his voice has only gotten stronger and more assured with each release.

As I revisited some of Zinn’s stuff, I also remembered a conversation I had with bluesrocker Patrick Sweany about 15 years ago when I met him in a small club in Akron. After we shared a few niceties, he jumped right into a lengthy description of all that’s good and right about Rusty’s playing – a rootsy sound that combines the muscle and economy of a Cropper with the daredevil spirit of someone like Mickey Baker… a sound that seems to come from an era when Swing was King and shredding à la Stevie Ray was a disaster yet to happen: Stand By Me

Zinn put out another satisfying album for Black Top, “Confessin’” – a wide-ranging affair that included this great organ combo workout: Confessin’ About My Baby

He also did a brief stint at Alligator, recording “The Chill” in 2000 before moving on to a couple of smaller labels (Bad Daddy and 9 Above). That’s when things started to get real interesting…

His first post-Alligator release, “Zinfidelity, Vol. 1,” took a detour into classic ‘70s soul, including long-lost nuggets like Sammy Taylor’s Ain’t That Some Shame. Then the reggae influence began to take hold on 2007’s “Reggaeblue.” And the artist now simply known as “Rusty” hasn’t looked back since. He’s teamed up with some of Jamaica’s finest – including the legendary Sly Dunbar on drums and Mikey Chung on guitar – playing the island’s greatest export with surprising conviction. Here’s the title cut from his latest release, 2009’s “Manifestation”:Manifestation

Rather than try to guess what inspired Rusty’s move to reggae, we decided to ask the artist himself…

T.Q.: How did you get into the whole reggae groove? What were your main influences?

R.Z.: I was raised in Santa Cruz, which has always been a reggae-friendly town. I was exposed to reggae at an early age, and all my friends listened to a lot of reggae. However, it wasn’t until the mid-‘90s when my pal Bob Welsh turned me on to rock steady and early reggae through the music of Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker and early Wailers. That started an almost “in the closet” fascination with Jamaican music, which eventually became a passion I couldn’t keep contained anymore! My biggest influences in Jamaican music have been classic singers such as Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, Slim Smith, Joe Higgs, Milton Henry and Clinton Fearon, just to name a few.

Rusty and Sly Dunbar

Do you still play the occasional blues gig, or are you solely devoted to reggae?

I am totally devoted to my reggae, rock steady and ska music. I turn blues gigs down left and right, unless it’s a gig I really want to do. Most of my blues playing now is only on recording sessions (they generally pay well!).

With the reggae influence now dominant, what’s changed about your guitar playing and singing?

The obvious change would be that I’ve committed myself to learning to play the music authentically, just like I did in all of my years playing blues. I sought out the pioneers of Jamaican music and have befriended many of my idols and have learned a lot from them. I never sing in patois but sing in my own voice to keep it real and be sincere with the genre. My guitar playing has taken a total back seat to my vocals. I do a lot of gigs with two guitar players, and I often will just merely sing on these gigs, which is very liberating! I have two guitar players in my group. One is Bob Welsh, who really is responsible for turning me into a bonafide Jamaican music nut. The other is the legendary Hux Brown, who played guitar on thousands of sessions with players like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Toots & The Maytals and Desmond Dekker, just to name a few. It’s funny, even though I don’t always play a lot of guitar on the shows, I have learned a lot about the guitar from Hux. My singing has become more intense and passionate singing this music because I never was really happy singing blues, and I feel like I’ve really found my voice. I always enjoyed playing blues on the guitar but was never satisfied singing blues. For about a year before I really took the plunge and started only playing reggae, I was singing soul music on the road with a seven-piece band including horns. I was also mostly just singing in that project as well and playing guitar on numbers that really needed it.

What do the old blues cats think about your reggae stuff? (I’ve noticed some blues players and fans can be a little parochial.)

I haven’t gotten much feedback from the old blues performers, as most of the older ones I used to perform with have passed on! Although Willie “Big Eyes” Smith got a kick out of it and laughed and told me he knew I went over to reggae cause that’s where all the weed was… He! He! Which is funny cause I don’t smoke herb at all. I have mostly gotten resistance from younger blues fans and performers. A lot of folks are always chatting behind my back. It often gets back to me. I grew dreadlocks and wore them for about five or six years and embraced many elements of the Rastafarian lifestyle for a time as well, and this seemed to terrify many “blues” folks. People told me I couldn’t switch to another genre and that I would be a bluesman forever, but I felt I needed to be singing something different that better suited my voice and songwriting talents. It has ultimately made me stronger to come up against this resistance. I’ve always loved music, not just blues. My first passions were R&B, soul, etc… and The Beatles when I was a young boy, which inspired me to learn the drums first. Not very many people know that! I even played drums in an after-school Motown cover band with girl singers when I was a teenager! We did one public performance back then before we all went our separate ways.

How has the move been from a business standpoint?

From a business standpoint it has been like starting all over again… I’ve been accused of being “crazy” and “courageous,” among other things. Some amazing things have happened to me in my reggae career already! The future looks bright, but the bottom line is I am happy singing and playing what I want. Check out www.rustyreggae.com and come join me on the journey.

More Rusty reggae… a live performance from “Parti Gras” in Toronto. Stick around for Rusty’s solo – he really burns it:

Andrae Crouch

I’ve been at this for more than two years now and this is our first post on gospel music. Bless me, my readers, for I have sinned…

I certainly feel sanctified now that I’ve seen “Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase,” which features four broadcasts of the Emmy-winning gospel program that ran from 1963 to 1984 on WLS in Chicago. The Soul Stirrers, The Staple Singers, Andrae Crouch, Jessy Dixon, Inez Andrews… You can’t lose with this A-list of gospel talent. But the show’s secret weapon might have been its host, Sid Ordower – a buttoned-up guy who could’ve easily hosted a nationally syndicated game show, but made it his mission to present gospel music in a dignified, professional setting. And I’m not sure anyone’s done it better since.

I especially liked the ecumenical feel of Ordower’s commentary throughout the programs. As a Jewish man who was very active in the Civil Rights movement, Ordower brought a rich perspective to the music – one that made it clear the artists and their songs weren’t just glorifying a higher power, but also showing us a better way of living down here on earth. Here’s part of Ordower’s introduction of the Norfleet Brothers, from a 1964 broadcast:

“Many people wonder just where the spirituals and jubilee songs come from. But you know it’s really no mystery. They developed out of the experiences of people expressing their sorrows, their joys, their hopes and their deep yearnings for a better life. Some of these songs go back as much as 100 years. And they are as fresh and as full of meaning today as they were when they were originally sung.”

For a better sense of Ordower’s legacy, check out this 11-minute history of Jubilee Showcase, which includes parts of interviews with Mavis Staples and gospel/soul singer Otis Clay:

The performances by The Staple Singers alone – with Pops playing deep blues on guitar and Mavis wailing away – are worth the price of the DVD. But some of the lesser-known acts are equally fascinating, like the very funky Salem Travelers, named after the Greater Salem Baptist Church in Chicago. The group updates the gospel quartet tradition with a heavy dose of ’60s soul and even played New York City’s Apollo Theater – as it turned out, on the day Martin Luther King Jr. died. They eventually recorded a tribute to Dr. King, Tell It Like It Is, that they also performed on Jubilee Showcase on June 28, 1969. The group remembers it well, as singer Robert Dixon points out in one of the DVD’s interviews: “Sunday morning, a lot of them before they got to church they’d get ready to look at Jubilee Showcase. And they’d go to church saying ‘well, you know, those Norfleet Brothers really sung today! Those Salem Travelers were on there. Those Mighty Clouds…’ I was proud of it. I was very proud of it. It was just one of the best things that could’ve happened to the groups. As a matter of fact, I know it was.”

We’ll close with a little taste of Tell It Like It Is, recorded for the Chess subsidiary Checkers and arranged by Sonny Thompson, who played piano on some of Freddie King’s classic sides for the Cincinnati-based King label:

To order Classic Moments in Jubilee Showcase, check out this brief promo or go here.

But wait… There’s more! For some good old-fashioned showmanship, it’s hard to top The Mighty Clouds of Joy (from “TV Gospel Time,” a program that aired in Baltimore). Nice footage of gospel star (and show host) Jessie Mae Renfro too:

Here’s another hair-raising video of great American gospel. This one features The Campbell Brothers (with Chuck on pedal steel), a sacred steel gospel group caught rockin’ the House of God Church in Rush, NY. We tagged it on the end of a previous post… Definitely worth a second look:

We’ll kick things off with our own little version of “name that riff”: Mystery Riff

John Lennon’s snarling intro to Revolution? Guess again… Blues guitarist Pee Wee Crayton laid down this radioactive riff back in ’54 on Do Unto Others – one of the first recordings to feature Leo Fender’s new toy, the Stratocaster. And it was waxed some 14 years before Lennon came up with the same idea. Am I trying to point out the Beatles weren’t original? Of course not… just suggesting they stole from the right sources.

Connie Curtis “Pee Wee” Crayton is one of those blues guys who, every 20 years or so, gets the attention he deserves – including a lengthy two-part feature in Living Blues magazine from ‘83 and this more recent appraisal by our friend The Hound – but then he drifts back into obscurity. For example, a quick search of Crayton on Amazon brings up a couple of second-rate domestic releases and a few pricey, out-of print imports, but you can find virtually all the B.B. King and T-Bone Walker you need. RCR says it’s time to right this wrong… and we won’t stop until this blistering workout finds its way into the next Nike commercial: Pee Wee’s Wild

Back in the Fifties, a live showdown between Crayton and Walker would generate the same amount of hype that a heavyweight title bout now brings to Vegas – with Crayton gladly playing the role of trash-talking upstart. Here’s a great example of Pee Wee getting up in T-Bone’s grille (from a ’56 edition of the Pittsburgh Courier):

“‘I think I’m better than he is,’ Crayton told The Courier. ‘He can play with but three fingers. I use all mine. He may be a better showman – he does the splits and puts his guitar behind his head – but I can play better… Anyway,’ he continued, ‘when he puts his guitar behind his head, he can’t play anything. He may hit a few chords, but that’s all.”

Walker gives a little back too: “Pee Wee might say anything. I can take T-Bone Jr. here (R.S. Rankin, T-Bone’s nephew) and run him off the stage. Pee Wee plays two or three pretty good numbers, but the rest of them he stole from me.” Pee Wee and T-Bone… the first gangstas?

Chest-thumping aside, Crayton had the greatest respect for his mentor and fellow Texan. But it’s interesting to place the two legends side-by-side. Walker: the elegant stylist with an impeccable sense of time… like an expensive bottle of French Bordeaux wine: T-Bone Shuffle Then Crayton: bold, brash and maybe even a little belligerent… think warm muscatel, fermented while you wait: Crayton Special

I’ll defer to the Hound for the thoughtful and entertaining bio. Suffice it to say that, like Walker (four years his senior), Crayton was born and raised in Texas and then migrated to L.A. in the mid-‘30s. But while Walker hit the ground duck-walking through the music clubs along Central Avenue, Crayton was a late-bloomer – working in a shipyard during the war before moving to Oakland, where he made a name for himself both as a bandleader and a sideman (most notably for R&B hitmaker Ivory Joe Hunter).

The commond ground for Walker and Crayton was the emergent sound of West Coast R&B. It was the land of honkers, shouters and bar-walking showmen – and Crayton fit right in with his fiery guitar and 300-foot-long chord. In short order, he became one of the few guitar-shredding frontmen in a sax-driven form.

You could argue that Crayton’s style was a near-perfect amalgam of all the influences that came together in L.A. before jump blues was eclipsed by rock ‘n roll. He played it down-home and dirty like a true son of the south, but threw in just enough jazzy sophistication to show he had no intention of moving back to Texas. With his distinctive croon, he also mastered that unique West Coast artform known as the blues ballad (think Charles Brown and Nat King Cole). Here’s one of the best examples of the form, Pee Wee’s sweet cover of a T-Bone original: I’m Still in Love with You

He eventually added a few other spices – including chitlin’-circuit soul and some fancy fretwork that he learned from the great jazzman Kenny Burrell during an extended stay in Detroit during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. But you wouldn’t sell Pee Wee short by lumping his best stuff into three golden eras:

• The Modern Recordings – singles that Crayton recorded for the Modern, R.P.M. and Flair labels from 1948 to 1951
• The Aladdin/Imperial Recordings – featuring some of New Orleans’ best session players
• The Later Years – OK, this category is a bit of a cop-out, but I’m sticking with it

Crayton moved back to L.A. in the late ‘40s mainly for the opportunity to record for Modern, where artists ranging from Etta James to John Lee Hooker created some of the era’s finest blues and R&B singles. Crayton’s Modern recordings were no exception. Ranging from slow-burning ballads to full-blown meltdowns, they helped pave the way for the first generation of rockers – including Elvis, who reportedly was knocked sideways by a Pee Wee performance in Memphis.

On many of the Modern singles, Pee Wee was backed by the legendary band leader, arranger and sax player Maxwell Davis, who also is responsible for some of B.B. King’s finest moments on record. Crayton also rubs up against jazz royalty – including Count Basie band members Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet and Ben Webster on sax, and the king of Kansas City piano, Jay McShann. Here Pee Wee uses some fat chords (and not always the right ones) to punctuate McShann’s boogie woogie: Boogie Woogie Upstairs

Crayton came up with a few hits during the Modern years – including Blues After Hours and Texas Hop – but he soon lost favor at the label as B.B.’s star began to rise. After floundering around for a few years, he landed in New Orleans in ’54 to record at Cosimo Matassa’s Rampart Street studio. There he teamed up with city’s finest producer, Dave Bartholomew, and his band to cut some first-rate singles for the Aladdin and Imperial labels. Among other highlights, Crayton and Bartholomew came up with the flame-throwing riff at the top of this post… not to mention a few New Orleans-flavored rockers, shuffles, the requisite ballads and this outstanding instrumental featuring Salvador Doucette on piano: Blues Before Dawn

I’d loosely define Pee Wee’s later years as running from 1971 – when he recorded a well-received album called “The Things I Used to Do” for the Vanguard label – up to his death in 1985, a year that found him still actively performing and recording. During the lean years (mainly the Sixties), he lived mostly in L.A. and supported his family by working as a truck driver. But as he enjoyed a modest revival into the Eighties, he was befriended by next-generation bluesmen like harp players Kim Wilson (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) and Rod Piazza (the L.A.-based swing-blues outfit The Mighty Flyers).

Piazza even managed to give the elder Crayton a new lease on life by backing him with the retro-sounding Flyers on a session in ’83 (with the wonderful Debra “Honey” Piazza on piano): Come On Baby

He was the first Strat-wielding bluesman – the guy who showed the way for Clapton, Hendrix, Vaughan, Knopfler and many other Strat-handlers who followed. But he was far from your typical blues legend… a sharp-dressed crooner who also drove a truck and loved to play golf (yeah, you heard it right – the guys at the country club probably had no idea who they were playing with). Low handicap aside, he still belongs on any meaningful list of guitarists who matter.

No Pee Wee videos on youtube… so we’ll have to settle with the full version of the song we teased at the top (on 78 no less):

RCR checks in with our good friend Gunnar Menzel at iCrates – the Berlin-based online magazine and phone app for vinyl lovers everywhere.

T.Q.: We’re big fans of the iCrates online magazine. It’s a great place for vinyl lovers to share their latest finds. Now tell us about the iCrates phone app.

G.M.: The idea of the app came to us while we were on one of our usual Sunday digging trips around the Berlin flea markets. I was always upset by the fact that there was no possibility to listen to the stuff at most of the flea market stands and if so, you always had to fight with a bunch of guys over the one crappy record player. So I was always looking up stuff on my iPhone – checking releases on discogs, prices on eBay and, last but not least, looking up the songs of the stuff I was craving on youtube. This was a time-consuming thing, so one day when I told a colleague about this, he broke down laughing and admitted that he had exactly the same experience… A few beers later, the idea of the iCrates app was born.

While lots of extra functions were developed along the way, it’s pretty much the thing we dreamed of two years back in that Berlin cellar bar. An iPhone app that would give us the ability to access all possible information on the record we were holding in our hands, quickly and simply. We also could listen to it track by track just like a record as well as find information on pricing and rarities. So the flea market guys couldn’t rip us off anymore. Haha.

LP sales are way up, and big-name acts are rolling out new releases on vinyl first… Why are records making such a strong comeback?

I think it is a rejection of the hyper-digitalization of everything else. We now have a generation that doesn’t want to lose touch with physical objects, and fortunately it coincides with retro being cool. It might even have been helped by the internet, through which you can discover so much old music. But I think it’s best described by what I refer to as my “Pink Floyd Incident.”

Back in the day, I used to DJ with vinyl. But then the mp3 revolution was going strong and I went all mp3. I stacked all my vinyls in the basement and didn’t touch them for over 10 years. I had become an mp3 junkie, just trying to get all the music I could possibly get. I wasn’t even listening to all the gigabytes of music I had, but was just getting more and more. Music became an endless stream of accessible data for me. Nothing was worth worshiping anymore. All the musical creations of Pink Floyd were just one folder on a hard disc. Nothing more, nothing less. And with Pink Floyd my awakening began. One day I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd again, so I plugged my iPod into my stereo, made myself comfortable, and waited for Pink Floyd’s characteristic sound to kick in. But it didn’t happened. I was stunned. What was it? Had I completely lost my feeling for music? Was my stereo broken? So I went down to the basement, got my Pink Floyd albums out, bought myself a record player, made myself comfortable and there I was… floating in the warm sound of Pink Floyd. Since then I’ve been hooked all over again.

We loved meeting you and your crack staff in Berlin, which reminds me of what New York City was like in the ‘70s – lots of great energy and some of it dangerous. Was I really close to getting my ass kicked at that Russian bar? (By the way, I want to move into the Michelberger Hotel.)

Oh my god, don’t remind me of that night… We were all suffering for days. I don’t think you were that close, but maybe you shouldn’t have made fun of Ivan Rebroff. Besides that, it was all fine… They always ask about you when we go there! But seriously, Berlin is at the moment a very free and open place. It attracts a lot of great individuals and has a great music scene. A very good place to make and create new stuff and make the iCrates magazine happen. It’s just in the air around here.

You seem like a fairly normal guy… How did you get into all this vinyl mania?

Thanks, that’s also what the girls back in high school always used to say to me. About the vinyl, ummmm… I don’t really know. I guess if you put one and one together, add the app, the magazine and me being vinyl addicted again since my “Pink Floyd Incident,” it just had to happen this way.

You do quite a bit of DJing in Germany. What albums seem to work the best at getting people on the dancefloor?

That always depends on the situation, but I would say there are three absolute DJ Weapons that never fail me, even if I totally try to avoid them whenever I can:

1. Michael Jackson: Billie Jean
2. Wham: The Wham Rap
3. Sugarhill Gang: Rappers Delight

Gunnar takes control

For all of our gearheads out there, tell us what system you use to show off your best vinyl.

I go with the good ol’ wheels of steel Technics SL 1210 MK, with quite average Ortofon Pro S Systems; and in terms of speakers, nothing ever beats the warm, powerful sound of a pair of vintage Yamaha Ns 690.

A friend of ours down in Cincinnati organizes Vinyl Nights at local bars. Everyone brings an armful of records, then each person gets up and describes a favorite album before playing a song or two. Sort of like group therapy for vinyl addicts. Do you have anything like that going on in Berlin?

Its funny you ask since we do the same with iCrates every third Tuesday at the Multilayer Laden around the corner. We play one record completely through and talk about it afterwards. The cool thing is that not only is the Multilayer Laden cozy, but they also provide headphones for each guest, so you can always decide if you just want to listen to the record in a bar atmosphere with all the conversations or if you want to have the full package.

Your online magazine seems to be a good barometer of what crate-divers are searching for. What’s hot in vinyl right now? And what are your personal favorites?

I guess what’s hot is a very personal thing. For example, within our magazine we have so many different characters with so many different musical tastes, it’s always funny when they all come together and start telling each other about their latest acquisitions. That can easily range from early jazz shellacks of Turkish folk funk (yes there is such thing) to Berlin underground minimal techno, with all the stuff in between. But one thing  is clearly on the rise here in Berlin right now, and that’s Disco. So for me, I’ve been into Disco big time for about a year now and I would say my personal favorites (for DJing) right now are:

• Bionic Boogie: Feel Good for a While
• Macho: I’m a Man (17: 38 Min Full Version… I just played that last night, and everything after minute 9 is amazing!)
• Ferrara: Love Attack
• Kano: It’s a War (nothing more to say)
• Tyson: Die on the Dancefloor (yeaah, I love the new disco stuff)

What’s your idea of a “Holy Grail” album – something very rare and valuable?

I guess that would be the Beatles “White Album” with the number 0000005, which is the most valuable record right now I guess, but I don’t care that much about prices… The music and the sound is what gets me.

You guys like to tweet your Record Cover of the Day… What’s your all-time favorite?

My personal favorite is Munich Machine:

In terms of the other folks at iCrates, I can’t tell… Ask 20 different people, get 20 different answers.

That’s one wild-ass cover – but I’m not sure I’d give it a spin… Are we really welcome to come back to Germany any time, or were you saying that just to be nice?

Haven’t you booked your ticket yet? Like they say in Germany, “you still have a suitcase in Berlin” and a couple of lunatics will take care of it till you return. We are honestly looking forward to it (the Russians from the Kvartira 62 Bar too by the way).

Some links from Gunnar you might like:

My Dj Team: 

http://soundcloud.com/schwipp_schwapp

https://www.facebook.com/SchwippSchwapp

My Partycollective:

http://funksportkollektiv.de/

My Website:

http://www.gpunk.de/

Here’s a great video with neo-soulman Mayer Hawthorne, currently featured in iCrates:

And here’s Mayer pursuing his favorite obsession, crate-digging:

Here’s a soundtrack for you multi-taskers out there: MDQ

I’m not a Broadway musical kind of guy. I blame it on the gritty, gut-wrenching films I watched as a kid, like Mean Streets and The Deer Hunter. You won’t hear me burst into Oklahoma or The Impossible Dream, with arms flailing for dramatic effect.

I’m also wary of most efforts to make the form more contemporary. Walked out of Phantom during intermission (wanted to leave earlier)… Found Mamma Mia! to be a promising new method of torture for terrorist suspects… Would rather put a rivet gun to my head than go see American Idiot.

So when I was offered a few tickets to a touring production of Million Dollar Quartet, I initially demurred. But I’m glad I went, for several reasons. First, it’s a snapshot of a time in music I’ve always found fascinating – right after the birth of rock ‘n roll, and before Elvis had about 30 bad films under his belt. Second, all the principal actors in the production are real, live, breathing musicians who acquit themselves nicely on Fifties classics like Matchbox, Who Do You Love, Great Balls of Fire and Sixteen Tons. Third, it keeps the threadbare narrative conceits you can find in virtually every musical to a minimum.

The production also benefits from the contributions of musical arranger/supervisor Chuck Mead, who co-founded one of the best bands to come out of Nashville in many years, BR5-49.

Million Dollar Quartet: The Musical

For those of you who prefer Broadway musicals to Memphis rock ‘n roll, let me offer a little background (the rest of you can skip ahead a couple of paragraphs). Million Dollar Quartet captures an eventful night at a legendary site – Memphis’ Sun Studios, where producer Sam Phillips made music history with artists ranging from Howlin’ Wolf and Junior Parker to Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. But by late ‘56, Phillips was struggling to come up with his next big star, having sold Elvis’ contract to RCA the previous year for $40,000. Although Johnny Cash was tearing up the charts with Folsom Prison Blues and I Walk the Line, he couldn’t keep up with Elvis, who made his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956 (with an amazing 83% of the nation’s TV audience). And Carl Perkins was still fighting his way back from a serious car accident earlier in the year.

That was the setting on December 4, 1956, when Elvis – joined by paramour du jour Marilyn Evans, a showgirl from Vegas – just happened to be back in Memphis for the holidays. On a whim, Elvis and Evans decided to stop by Sun Studios, where Perkins and special guest Lewis were working on a few numbers (Matchbox and Put Your Cat Clothes On). And, depending on whether you believe the Man in Black or roots music aficionado Peter Guralnick – author of the definitive book on Elvis, “Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley” – Cash was either there when Elvis walked in the door or was summoned by Phillips to show up later. Regardless, it marked the first and only performance of the so-called Million Dollar Quartet of Presley, Perkins, Cash and Lewis – and Sun producer and engineer Cowboy Jack Clement had the tape rolling for posterity.

Mostly, the foursome toyed with gospel numbers and hillbilly tunes and even tackled a few Christmas standards, like Jingle Bells and White Christmas. But maybe the significance of the event was the way they lovingly recreated some of the songs they grew up with while mostly avoiding the rockers that made them famous. On this point, I’ll defer to Colin Escott’s liner notes with the 2006 reissue (which features 12 minutes of previously unreleased material):

“…except for a couple of Chuck Berry songs, a Pat Boone song, and a few of Elvis’ hits, the Million Dollar Quartet session was a catechism in where rock ‘n’ roll came from. Rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t delivered to us one night in 1955, and it wasn’t white kids singing R&B. Rock ‘n’ roll was born of white gospel, black gospel, old country, new country, doo-wop, blues, pop, and cowboy songs. And it’s all here. This is the common ground. This is what the founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll music heard and played solely for the love of playing it. Only those who were present at the creation knew about this music, and in their hands, rock ‘n’ roll was, in the broadest sense, folk music.”

Case in point: the quartet’s rousing rendition of this traditional song: Farther Along

The folks responsible for the musical certainly shared Escott’s point of view, but they also knew the events of 12/4/56 didn’t exactly lend themselves to an extended dramatic treatment. So they introduce a few other story lines that didn’t come into play during the actual quartet sessions. For example, Marilyn Evans became Dyanne, a swinging chanteuse who performs Fever and I Hear You Knockin’. Johnny Cash announces his departure to Columbia Records, even though he stayed with Sun for another two years. Perkins clashes with the flamboyant newcomer Lewis and then confronts Phillips for letting Elvis appropriate his hit song Blue Suede Shoes. And Phillips reminds everyone that he was responsible for giving them their first breaks.

Cowboy Jack Clement

Seems like a good opportunity to hear from someone who was there, so I decided to check in with Nashville resident Cowboy Jack:

T.Q.: Did you see the musical? What did you think about it?

J.C.: Yeah, I saw it a couple months ago. I liked it… They even had me sing one of my songs at the end – It’ll Be Me, which Jerry Lee did. It’s a great show… you should go see it.

I did… and I agree! The play made it seem like there was some tension between Perkins and Lewis. Was that what you recall?

I don’t remember any tension at the sessions – maybe a little bit between Sam and both Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, who later left Sun for Columbia in Nashville… I brought Jerry Lee there to play piano. He played great that day. We came up with a hit, Matchbox. Jerry Lee’s piano playing made that record: Matchbox

Did you feel you were part of something historic?

Sort of, yeah… especially when Elvis came in. He was really diggin’ Jerry Lee’s stuff on the radio. There was a bunch of jammin’ on old gospel songs like Down by the Riverside as I recall. They all knew those old standards. It went on for quite a while. Sam went next door to Taylor’s Restaurant, where they had a juke box with a lot of Sun singles. Sam took care of a lot of business at Taylor’s – he even had an office there. (Back at the studio) I heard them talkin’ and jammin’ and thought I’d be remiss if I didn’t turn on the tape machine, so I moved a couple of mikes around and let it roll for a couple hours. Sam came back, saw what was going on and called the paper. That’s how the photograph happened (at the top of our post). No one paid much attention to the tape… It sat on the shelf in a metal container and was there when I left a few years later. Then someone bootlegged it and it became an album. They played a lot of good stuff that day, pickin’ and singin’ those old songs.

I’ll leave the last word to the late Phillips (quoted in Guralnick’s book “Last Train to Memphis”): “It was totally extemporaneous… everything was off mike, if it was on mike it was by accident – I think this chance meeting meant an awful lot to all those people, not because one was bigger than another, it was kind of like coming from the same womb.”

Elvis is leaving the building… and you can hear Jerry Lee shout out to Cowboy Jack: Elvis Says Goodbye

Carl Perkins with a few special friends… I’m surprised this didn’t make Scorcese’s George Harrison doc on HBO – proof the guy could play some serious rockabilly…