From his mid-teens, he played with such blues legends as Woodrow Adams, Howlin' Wolf, Joe Willie Wilkins and Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) who used to say he was his son because he was too young to enter bars and juke-joints, with his cousin Elmore James, Joe Hill Louis, Henry Townsend, Little Milton, Ike Turner, Albert King, Robert Nighthawk and many other bluesmen… He could also play bass, drums and harmonica.
Though famous as a main fixture on the St. Louis blues scene where he probably played all the possible clubs, roadhouses and dance-halls existing in town on both sides of the river, incredibly he didn’t record any album before the age of 52, "Please Mr. Foreman",with his band The Blues Eldorados, and had to wait to be close to 70 to record two more despite a declining health : "Message To St. Louis" in 1999 (released in 2000), and "Please Accept My Love" cut two month before his death due to emphysema in December 2000 in St. Louis, two months after his 69th birthday. This album was released posthumously in 2002.
Bankhead"s blues style is an exciting mix of electric Delta country blues, sometimes not far from Hill Country style, of Memphis soul sound and of Chicago blues. Let's call it the St. Louis sound.
It also features a plain R'n'B number like "There Is Something On Your Mind" with a nice original vibrato guitar riff, a twist for organ-driven jazzy funk on "Making Love Is Good For You" (with the late Oliver Sain on organ), and some straight blues songs close to the Chicago style ("Down With The Blues", "Don't Take My Picture Off Your Wall"), reminding that St. Louis is about halfway between the Delta and the Windy City. This is illustrated by the closing track, the excellent pounding cover of Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years".
A very appealing album, even if it necessarily gives an incomplete idea of Bankhead's wide musical abilities...
The sound of the instruments, starting by Bankhead's guitar, is plain and natural which gives the album its vintage feel, Bankhead's soft and warm vocals are full of soul, and Bob Lohr's piano is bringing a nice extra dimension as well as the late Erskine Oglesby's sax on four tracks. All that put together give a really exciting album.
In this third and last testamentary album (he died two months after the recording sessions), he sings hoarsely, his voice sometimes close to breaking down, due to a severe lung disease, which seems to have affected his strange jerky way of playing guitar as well, as on "Are You Ready" particularly.
Mr. Bankhead offers ten plain rootsy Delta blues tracks with vintage authenticity without any adornment, all sounding like first takes, which might very well be the case. Simply played music, simple but soulful singing, simple basic guitar playing...
Knowing what was going to happen a couple of months later, his covers of "Worried Life Blues" and "Everything Gonna Be Alright" or his original "Are You ready" ("when the times come...") are quite moving moments.
At last, I would like to say that even without knowing about the man's tragic ending, this album exhales a real feeling of sadness, a bleak helpless mood. Isn't that the true foundation of Blues ? Peace be on such a (blues)man !
I will stick to this conclusion. ■
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