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Big Bike Griffin's big blues
It starts with the gutsy funky "Somebody's Been Talkin'", a Little Milton number revisited with heavy bass & drums, groovy horn riffs, pulsing organ and flashes of burning guitar. It continues in the same vein with "Satisfied", another Little Milton song. The third track, Percy Strother's "Love Is Growing Cold", is a slow blues where Griffin's scorching guitar lightnings are entwined with exciting organ parts by Clayton Ivey. The same blood runs through the entire album : rhythm and blues with as much funky rhythm and soulful blues, and a bit of jazzy groove.
The music, recorded in the famous Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama, is as powerful as the 6'10"-350 lbs. Griffin, a pure Okie biker wearing 5X size t-shirts who was born and raised in Lawton, in the southern part of Oklahoma before moving up to Nashville in the late 1980s as a session musician while playing blues with his own "Unknown Blues Band" and releasing his debut album in 1992. "Sittin' Here With Nothing" is his third opus. Several albums followed, the name Big Mike Griffin grew bigger and bigger, but unfortunately Griffin passed away in December 2021.
The man was not just a biker making music, he was a real bluesman influenced by elders like Freddie King, Albert King and Albert Collins, a powerful singer and a songwriter (he signed six songs on the album) who happened to love motorbikes too. Griffin's guitar screams are wrapped around his hoarse vocals with a relative sobriety that makes his playing all the more efficient. His slow soulful blues are as catchy as his fast funky songs. In some aspects he reminds Coco Montoya in his first solo albums.
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| Clayton Ivey |
On the funky R'n'B side, in addition to the tracks mentioned above, we have "Sittin' Here With Nothing" featuring original New Orleans Mardi Gras-style jungle drums and greasy slide guitar; the hot funky organ and horns driven "The Last Thing I Need" (a song written by Jimmy Payne); three outstanding tracks of swinging groove : "High Maintainence Woman" (sic), "Bad Seed" and "I Am The Doctor" (Jimmy Payne again).The great organ lines woven by the excellent Clayton Ivey give "He Can't Do It", one of the highlights of the album, a mellow mood that reminds both Santana and J. J. Cale (Ivey's organ sounds a lot like Kossi Gardner's on "Right Down Here" from J.J. Cale's 1972 album "Really").
On "You Done Tore Your Playhouse Down" Griffin's sharp guitar sounds like a mix of both Albert and Freddie King. The final jazzy "Deliver Me From Evil" is a crooner with great piano from Ivey again, definitely the outstanding member of the band. The song would certainly not deserve to be re-titled "Deliver Me From Ivey" ! 😉I must say that I didn't know Griffin and this album is really a good surprise filled with two spice ingredients that are essential to good music in my opinion : good guitar and swinging groove. And this excellent album doesn't lack any. ■
Live videos...
…with my apologies for the poor visual quality of most of the Big Mike Griffin videos available on YT...
● With Clayton Smith, Alzheimer's Association Walk, 2016 & 217 :
● Acoustic at The Last Chance Saloon, Manchester, Tennessee, 2016 :
● Wind River Harley Davidson, Lawton, Oklahoma, 2015 : ● WC Handy Fest., 2015 (with Mandy K Shucher on bass & Herb Shucher on drums) :
● With Chris Toefield, Brass Horse Cafe, Barkhamsted Connecticutt, 2014 :
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