Twittering Machines

various
The Great Blues Men

I don’t remember exactly when I first bought this record but it was some time in the mid-1970s. What I do remember is being captivated, completely and totally taken with the sounds of Homesick James, Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Gary Davis, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Robert Pete Williams, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Big Bill Broonzy, Otis Span, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, Lightnin Hopkins, Johnny Young, James Cotton, Jimmy Rushing, JB Hutto, Ida Cox, Joe Turner & Pete Johnson, Johnny Shines, Junior Wells, Jesse Fuller, Mance Lipscomb and Otis Rush. Every single track of this double LP was like a trip to some other time and place and no two destinations were alike.

The Blues. More than any other, this record helped me hear how inept that one word is at capturing all of these people and their music. Hell, even if you narrow it down to Delta Blues you’re still talking about trying to stick Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Johnny Shines, James Cotton, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters into the same stylistic pot that wouldn’t fit any two. Just compare the brute force of Son House to the gentleness of John Hurt or the falsetto moans of Skip James to the baritone bluster of Muddy Waters and you’ll see how futile it is to cull and call these men by anything but their names. But for the purposes of this record, I’m glad they generalized.

Put out by Vanguard in 1972, The Great Blues Men is a stunning compilation that still leaves me awestruck and inspired. Even if you own LPs by all or most of these blues men (and woman), I’d still recommend this collection because its just so much damn fun to listen through. And it’s easy to get, inexpensive, includes brief bios and that cover collage by Eric Von Schmidt (yes, that Eric Von Schmidt who hung with Dylan and whose LP cover appears at the top of the pile on Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home) is a visual treat.

A number of these tracks are live recordings taken from John Hammond’s 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall (available on Vanguard) and the Newport Folk Festivals from 1959 – ’65. I’d also recommend the LPs titled The Blues at Newport from 1963 and 1964. Come to think of it I suppose I’d recommend getting at least 1 LP by every player on this record and I realize as I type this I’m not done.

From the liner notes by Leroy J. Pierson:

The twenty-six performances included in this justly titled anthology present a regional and stylistic panorama of the blues subculture in America, culled from four primary sources: John Hammond’s 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert held in New York’s Carnegie Hall (Broonzy, Cox, Terry and Turner), the Newport Folk Festivals of 1959 through 1965 (Hooker, Estes, Waters, Fuller, Lipscomb, Davis, House, McGhee & Terry, Hopkins, McDowell and Williams), Vanguard’s groundbreaking Chicago sessions conducted by Sam Charters (Homesick James, Spann, Hutto, Shines, Young and Rush), and several solo sessions from the Vanguard studios (Hurt, Wells, Cotton, Rushing and Skip James). While bluesmen are commonly grouped and discussed in terms of their regional backgrounds and stylistic similarities, the intensely individual approach of these great blues singers demands an extended analysis.

Tracks:

Homesick James – Set A Date (2:44)
Bass – Willie Dixon
Drums – Frank Kirkland

John Lee Hooker * – Dusty Road (3:05)
Written-By – John Lee Hooker

Sleepy John Estes * – Corinna (2:45)
Harmonica, Other [Jug] – Hammy Nixon
Mandolin – Yank Rachel

Muddy Waters – Nineteen Years Old (4:55)
Bass – Sonny Wimberley
Drums – S.P. Leary
Guitar – Luther Johnson , Pee Wee Madison
Harmonica – George Smith (4)
Piano – Otis Spann
Written-By – McKinley Morganfield

Jesse Fuller * – San Francisco Bay Blues (2:40)
Written-By – Jesse Fuller*

Mance Lipscomb – Blues In G (3:33)
Written-By – Mance Lipscomb

Rev. Gary Davis * - If I Had My Way (Samson And Delilah) (3:05)
Written-By – Gary Davis*

Mississippi John Hurt – Moanin’ The Blues (3:15)
Guitar [2nd] – Patrick Sky

Junior Wells – Stormy Monday Blues (4:19)
Guitar – Buddy Guy
Written-By – Billy Eckstine , Earl Hines , Bob Crowder*

Johnny Shines – Dynaflow Blues (2:35)
Written-By – J. Shines*

Son House – Empire State Blues (3:01)
Guitar [2nd] – Al Wilson (2)
Written-By – Son House

Sonny Terry ** – Mountain Blues (3:04)

Joe Turner & Pete Johnson ** – It’s All Right, Baby (2:30)

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee * - Key To The Highway (3:38)
Written-By – Broonzy, Charles Segar

Otis Spann – Burning Fire (3:15)

Lightning Hopkins – Cotton Field Blues (5:36)

Big Bill Broonzy – Louise, Louise Blues (2:55)
Written-By – J. Mayo Williams , Johnny Temple

Johnny Young – Tighten Up On It (3:06)
Written-By – Johnny Young

James Cotton – Ain’t Nobody’s Business (3:23)

Jimmy Rushing – How Long, How Long Blues (4:45)
Written-By – Leroy Carr

Skip James – Cypress Grove Blues (4:10)
Written-By – Skip James

J.B. Hutto - Please Help (2:52)
Written By – Hutto

Fred McDowell * – Fred’s Rambling Blues (2:05)

Ida Cox ** – Four Day Creep (3:25)
Bass – W. Page
Drums – J. Jones
Guitar – F. Greene
Piano – J.P. Johnson
Saxophone [Tenor] – Lester Young
Trombone – Dickie Wells
Trumpet – Buck Clayton
Written-By – Ida Cox

Robert Pete Williams * – On My Way From Texas (3:43)

Otis Rush – It’s A Mean Old World (2:22)

* From the Newport Folk Festival recordings
** From the Spirituals to Swing concert