onurblues: V.A. - Mistakes Were Made: Five Years Of Raw Blues, Damaged Livers & Questionable Business Decisions - A Broke & Hungry Records Retrospective (2011)

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“The soundtrack of a people”

A unique journey in the raw blues still played in the Mississippi back-country juke-joints through the recording adventures of the young and creative St-Louis-based Broke & Hungry label founded five years earlier (2006) by blues aficionado Jeff Konkel.

Jeff Konkel is the man who has also authored with his accomplice Roger Stolle three very interesting documentary films : "M For Mississippi: A Road Trip Through The Birthplace Of The Blues" (2008), “We Juke Up In Here: Mississippi's Juke Joint Culture At The Crossroads” (2012) and “Moonshine & Mojo Hands”, a 10-episode Web series released in 2014-2015 (links below). He once explained : “Blues music isn’t just the genre that has spawned rock ’n roll. It's always been the voice of a culture, the soundtrack of a people.” The soundtrack of a people... a magnificent definition !

Roger Stolle (left) with Super Chikan and Jeff Konkel (right)

His friend Roger Stolle opened Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art in his adopted hometown of Clarksdale in 2002, an odd mixture of record store, art gallery, record/film label and musical events promotion. Stolle also writes books : “Hidden History of Mississippi Blues” (2011), “Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential: House Parties, Hustlers and the Blues Life” (2019); and co-directed with Damien Blaylock the documentary film “Hard Times” (2006) about bluesman Big George Brock. The be complete, Stolle was also Ground Zero Blues Club music coordinator, and one of the architects and founders of the now renowned Clarksdale Juke Joint Festival.

“Mistakes were made…” was produced in a similar spirit as the above-mentioned documentaries, or at least "M For Mississippi" (the second was just in the early making) whose soundtrack was released on two albums : Music From The Motion Picture “M For Mississippi" in 2008, and More Music From The Motion Picture “M For Mississippi" in 2009.

Actually, the eleven artists featured on “Mistakes Were Made…” are more or less the same as those appearing on both soundtracks, often blues musicians from the Broke & Hungry catalog : Jimmy “Duck” Homes, the first ever published by B&H and flagship of the label, Pat Thomas, Terry "Big T" Williams & Wesley "Junebug" Jefferson, the mysterious Mississippi Marvel, Odell Harris. The others, like R.L. Boyce and "T-Model" Ford, are on B&H's competitor Fat Possum's roster, or on obscure labels like L.C. Ulmer, or even self-produce themselves as Terry "Harmonica" Bean or Bill Abel.

Probably inspired by the Fat Possum label, “Mistakes Were Made…” is not just another one of these promotional projects aimed at advertising a label's catalog of artists, it offers more : on the 30 songs featured, half are previously unreleased (14 to be precise), specially recorded for the album or outtakes from published works.

A juke-joint

Among the featured artists, some, rather obscure (except to learned blues aficionados), will be real discoveries for the listener : the late whimsical Odell Harris; Bill Abel, musician, producer and recording engineer; the mysterious Mississippi Marvel; the late L.C. Ulmer; and even Hill Country bluesman Terry "Harmonica" Bean, still unknown to many.

A lot of the artists selected play Hill Country blues, and their music shares a common trait : a raw, unfiltered sound, the same delivered on Saturday nights in the indescribable juke-joints of Mississippi where, in a stifling and muggy atmosphere of human sweat, stale moonshine, beer and tobacco stench, and greasy soul food cooking steam, the musicians push their amps to the limit and draw a dirty shrilling tone from their battered guitars to cover the boisterous turmoil of the noisy jukers. We're far from the more refined sound heard in the blues clubs of Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans or Austin.

One last thing : the performances of the less known artists are often the most interesting and authentic.

The late Odell Harris was chosen to open the album with the down-home “Train I Ride”, and his raw instrumental “Hill Funk” is featured on CD2. Harris, who died in 2014, was an unpredictable, bad tempered and reclusive man, not to say untamed, who wouldn't care less for fame or even simple recognition. Even Konkel, who produced his only album, judiciously titled “Searching For Odell Harris”, met him only once, the day of the recording ! A chaotic and exhausting experience he'll probably never forget and that he recalled on the album's booklet. I can't resist to reproduce it below. Note that both Bill Abel and Lightnin' Malcolm were backing Harris on this memorable session.

Bill Abel playing diddley bow (photo) on the previously unreleased “The Mississippi Diddley” is probably the rootsiest moment of the album, a back-jump to a “pre-blues-as-we-know-it” time. Also renowned for his hard driving electrified country blues, Abel is an appealing bluesman, a passionate of ancient instruments and of the history of the Delta blues, the owner of Big Toe Studio in Duncan, MS, and the official recording engineer at B&H Records. A second unreleased more “classic” track appear on CD2 : “No Hard Time (Get You Off My Mind)”.

In the same old vintage way is the field holler sung a Capella by the late Wesley “Junebug” Jefferson (1944-2009). Drummer, then bassist, Jefferson has played with numerous musicians in the Delta, in particular with drummer Sam Carr and guitarist, /keyboardist & harmonicist Frank Frost, “Super Chikan” Johnson, or Terry "Big T" Williams with whom he recorded for B&H “Meet Me in the Cotton Field” released in 2007.

Clarksdale native Terry "Big T" Williams is considered as the “real thing” by those who saw him live. A prominent figure of Clarksdale, godson of the famous Big Jack Johnson, guitar student of the renowned Johnnie Billington, once hired by actor Morgan Freeman as the first musical director of his Ground Zero Blues Club, Williams has played with about any blues musician or band that counts around the Delta : Lonnie Pitchford, Albert King, Bobby "Blue" Bland, CeDell Davis, Robert Belfour, the Jelly Roll Kings, Big George Brock, Jimbo Mathus, the Welsey Jefferson Band… Until he moved to Memphis with his family, he was also active in educational projects, teaching blues to local kids, convinced that this was one of the ways the kids could build a better future for themselves.
++ More info on Wesley "Junebug" Jefferson & Terry "Big T" Williams

The late L.C. Ulmer (1928-2016) appealing melodic guitar picking is featured on the 7-minute “Rosalee” from his only album “Blues Come Yonder”. Unfortunately this is his only appearance on the album. A multi-instrumentalist playing often as a “twelve piece” one-man band, Ulmer is something of an enigma : he played with some of the greatest blues artists of his time but didn't record an album until he was in his eighties !

A South Mississippi native, he led a traveling early adult life, as far as California, Florida, Canada, Alaska and even Cuba, until settling down in Joliet, Illinois, in the mid-1960s for over 35 years. There he worked with artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Buddy Guy, no less ! In 2001, while he hadn't yet recorded any album, he returned to his native South Mississippi, regularly playing around in juke-joints, clubs and festivals. In 2011, his first album "Blues Come Yonder" was released at last. The only one before his passing in 2016 at age 87.

The Mississippi Marvel is a mysterious blues musician. Victim of the “devil's music” syndrome from his religious community, his real identity has never been revealed. He is featured on four numbers. One, “Big Road Blues”, had never been unreleased yet.

Pat Thomas, one of B&H Records' proteges and the son of the great Delta bluesman “Son” Thomas, is also entitled to four songs. He plays an intimate unadorned blues full of sensibility and even sometimes disarming simplicity. On his four songs featured here, two are unreleased : “Woke Up This Morning” and the John Lee Hooker cover “Boogie Chillen”.
++ More info

R.L. Boyce is a Hill Country blues legend. He started by playing drums with his uncle, the legendary Fife & Drums band leader Othar Turner, and sat as drummer on one album of his cousin Jessie Mae Hemphill released in 1990. He was 52 when his first album was released.

Bushy hair, unkempt beard, missing teeth and eyes blood shot from liking Moonshine too much, Boyce puts out a raw guitar hypnotic boogie, making him one of the most down-home musical heirs of R.L. Burnside whose grand-son, Cedric Burnside, often back him on drums, while his regular accomplice Lightnin’ Malcolm co-plays guitar with him as here on “Ain't It Alright”.
++ More partial info

Steve Malcolm aka Lightnin’ Malcolm, a resident in Holly Spring, in the hills, is another charismatic and energetic Hill Country musician who has learned directly from working with masters like R.L. Burnside, “T Model” Ford, Big Jack Johnson, Robert Belfour... He forged his unique simultaneous bass-rhythm-lead guitar technique and deep soulful voice during years of playing in juke-joints.

Uncertain birth date (sometime between 1921 and 1925), an abusive father, illiterate, in constant conflicts with the law, a few years on a chain gang for murder, 26 official children, unable to conceptualize his self-trained guitar technique... James Lewis Carter Ford aka "T-Model" Ford was playing the blues with his guts, not his brain. He life was a sorrow and violent blues in itself and his music reflects exactly that, raw and aggressive, but fragile at the same time.

A juke-joints musician, he was over 70 when Fat Possum Records “discovered” him. More than a half-dozen albums were released on Fat Possum and other obscure labels until his death in 2013. His track “Hi Heel Sneakers” had already been featured on the B&H soundtrack album “More Music From The Motion Picture M For Mississippi”.

Born in Pontotoc in 1961, Terry "Harmonica" Bean, whose father was a local blues musician, played blues in and out since he was 9. He was also playing baseball and became a top player in the American Legion league. Equally performant with either hand, able to pitch five no-hitters, he led his high school team to the state championship in 1980, attracting scouts from several professional teams. Unfortunately (for baseball but not for blues !), two driving accidents put an end to his baseball career.

He then turned to blues seriously in the late 1980s, playing harmonica for several years with "T-Model" Ford, Asie Payton or Lonnie Pitchford at various juke-joints in the Greenville area, before creating his own innovative blend of “two different styles that didn't combine until then, the Hill Country style using only guitar and drums, and the Delta blues using harmonica, open-tuning and slide guitar”, he explained a couple of years ago in an interview to the Webzine Country Blues.

He performed his Hill Country-Delta mix solo, with a rack harmonica, or with his own band. He self-produced his first album in 2001. To date, he has released almost a dozen, most of them also self-produced. He also appears in the three Konkel-Stolle films. The four songs featured here are all unreleased tracks recorded the same day at Bill Abel's Big Toe Studio.

Last but first on the B&H catalog : the always appealing Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. His special Bentonia emotional style, his very identifiable vintage voice, his clear guitar sound and accurate open-tuning playing put “Duck” among the most talented contemporary country bluesmen in Mississippi. On his six featured songs, three were unreleased. The third one, judiciously titled “Take A Trip”, makes a humorous closer for the album : the take was interrupted by the loud horn of a freight train running just across the road fronting his famous Blue Front Cafe !
++ More info about “Duck”, the Bentonia blues style, the Blue Front Cafe juke-joint

“Mistakes were made… Questionable business decisions…” maybe, though we'll never know which ones, but considering this excellent anniversary double album and more generally the quality of the young catalog of B&H and of its appealing artists, they were certainly not musical mistakes... ■

■ The three documentary films

► Watch "M For Mississippi" (https://mformississippi.com) : https://youtu.be/9vECArwtqhc

► “We Juke Up In Here” (http://www.wejukeupinhere.com) :

→ Trailer 1 : https://youtu.be/rozVNy9ux88

→ Trailer 2 : https://youtu.be/5Pb3lDkoqD4

► Watch “Moonshine & Mojo Hands” : http://www.moonshineandmojohands.com/episodes.htm

■ The odyssey of recording Odell Harris told by Jeff Konkel 

“Odell Harris is real. I met him once – on the night this disc was recorded. I haven’t seen him since, and I’m not sure if I will again.

“Those who know him well say that’s just how he is. He wanders in and out of contact as it suits him, and it usually suits him to stay lost.

Jeff Konkel
“Until now, those who have been able to hear Odell play, have been limited to a small-but-fortunate few. He played on a small stage at a Delta blues festival once a few years back and he has occasionally dropped in unannounced to jam at a Mississippi juke. Mostly, though, his performances are no more public than a spontaneous set in a friend’s living room or front porch.

“I made the decision to record Odell without ever having heard him play. The reports of his talent were too good to be ignored and the tales of his unreliability were so pervasive that I knew I might not have the chance again. We spoke by phone a couple of times and he assured me he’d be there for an all-night session we had scheduled on the gulf coast of Mississippi.

"I didn’t believe a word of it.

"When we pulled up to the recording site, we were all surprised to see an older, wiry black man in a dirty white cap and blood-shot eyes leaning against an old pick up truck with a battered guitar in his hands.

Odell Haris was backed...

“The rest, I figured, would be easy.

“Christ, was I wrong.

“In fairness to Odell, it wasn’t entirely his fault. For lack of a readily available recording studio, we were allowed to set up a makeshift studio at a local blues club that was closing early for the night. Unfortunately, the crowd never thinned out completely and those who stayed behind had no intention of keeping quiet. Throughout the session car keys were dropped, chairs clattered and drunken voices chattered on. Our efforts to minimize the noise were met first with blank stares, then visible contempt and eventually threats of physical violence. Being more of a lover than a fighter, I decided I could live with a little background noise. Hope you can, too.

...by Bill Abel on guitar...

“As for Odell, well, he’s not a man who takes instruction well. Simple requests like “Try singing into the microphone” or “Stop talking shit about everybody in the middle of a take” were met with bemused smirks.

“The session dragged on all night. It was grueling. Incredible performances were abandoned in mid-take. Others devolved into chaos. Given the already hostile environment in the club, I considered pulling the plug at several points. Maybe we could try again at a later date.

“But then around 4 a.m., everything seemed to lock into place. Like some kind of vampiric bluesman afraid of what dawn might bring, Odell suddenly got serious. Songs he had been taking half-passes at all night suddenly morphed into works of primal beauty. The shapeless jams of hours earlier became powerful hill-funk workouts as daylight approached.

...and Lightnin' Malcom on drums
“The session finally ground to a halt at around 7:30 a.m. and only because we had run out of tape.

“We left that morning with shattered nerves, sleep-deprived brains, alcohol-damaged livers and hours of tape. The CD you hold in your hands offers a strong distillation of what we captured that night. I think you’ll agree it was worth the effort.

“Since leaving that session, I have spoken with Odell a couple of times by phone, mostly relating to a scheduled appearance at a festival in Clarksdale. It surprised no one when he failed to show.

“This disc may be the only way you ever have a chance to hear Odell. But if you do happen to see him, ask him to call me. We need to do this again some time.” (Jeff Konkel, Broke & Hungry Records)

This epic recording took place on July 1, 2006 in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Videos

■ Odell Harris

► His album “Searching for Odell Harris” (audio playlist) - during the totally messy recording described above by Konkel, Harris, obviously drunk, is often playing out of tune : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mrI4OI67zALDNleRpHSv7SqME2MDKAwHs

The total absence of any live video on YT indicates that Harris got lost again...

■ Bill Abel

► Bill Abel about himself : https://player.vimeo.com/video/9850639

► Savona, Italy, 2009 : https://youtu.be/6x7XIg21aps

► With Cadillac John Nolden, Blues Marathon Expo, Jackson, MS, 2012 : https://youtu.be/42ePbnc1nWg

► Ground Zero Blues Club, Clarksdale, MS, 2013 : https://youtu.be/Hp_HKylCWPQ

► With Cadillac John Nolden, Italy, 2014 : https://youtu.be/aEI_gctMfWo

► Switzerland, 2015 : https://youtu.be/aRYNt6Lr7Ss

► Facebook show during the pandemic, 2020 : https://youtu.be/gPYGZZcrx6U?t=116

■ L.C. Ulmer

► New Roxy Theater, Clarksdale, MS :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/Jdl2xBHbSHo

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/tJ3Rducap5o

► Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, MS, 2012 : https://youtu.be/MafVw7tnk5c

■ The Mississippi Marvel

► His 2008 album “The World Must Never Know” (audio playlist) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lY8mwg3InQ2ZYzv3eNFXGvZIcxWlBJ2l0

■ Wesley "Junebug" Jefferson

► A documentary portrait (look for English subs in the video settings) : https://youtu.be/WGhMDxMgW7E?t=35

++ More videos

■ Terry "Big T" Williams

► Chicago Blues Festival :

→ 2007 : https://youtu.be/TnM6EBkMwRo

→ 2012 : https://youtu.be/s8VZBFFR9a8

► Juke Joint Festival, Clarksdale, MS, 2014 : https://youtu.be/lHWr5pzenxg

► Talking about Blues, Crossroads Cultural Arts Center, Clarksdale, MS, 2017 : https://youtu.be/HpH_2cxP5M8

► “Catfish Blues”, 2017 : https://youtu.be/BucoxsCGm38

► With the Family blues band, Cat Head, Clarksdale, MS, 2022 :

→ https://youtu.be/LVvGeHhIELg

→ https://youtu.be/NSi6NWJPiYQ

++ More videos

■ "T Model" Ford

► Talking about his tumultuous life : https://youtu.be/ARmbmeF4WQk

► Upstairs At Nick's, Philadelphia, 1998 : https://youtu.be/emZRQlRReCg?t=402

► Euclid Tavern, Cleveland, OH, 2000 : https://youtu.be/UgP01v3SSFs

► West End Cultural Center, Winnipeg, Canada, 2001 :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/mLca51aN6bk

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/pBQT2fmiRh8

→ #3 : https://youtu.be/ub5zs9FKOZo

→ #4 : https://youtu.be/xZFOie2CFxU

► New Haven, CT, 2010 : https://youtu.be/XbpYdoyKs1o

■ R.L. Boyce

► With friend Lightning Malcolm, Overton Square Crawfish Festival, Memphis, 2016 : https://youtu.be/rBaekXL_Zzw

► With Lightnin' Malcolm, Montreal Jazz Festival, 2018 : https://youtu.be/UGqoCdCM154

► With Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, Blue Front Cafe 71st Anniversary, Bentonia, MS (with R.L.'s daughter Sherena on tambourine), 2019 : https://youtu.be/DNxHG1cjkcw

► With Lightnin' Malcolm, New Orleans Jazz Museum, 2022 : https://youtu.be/Tp1h5QR3Z9k?t=607

++ More videos

■ Lightnin' Malcolm

► With Cedric Burnside, The Melting Point, Athens, GA, 2009 : https://youtu.be/qJ9GJ9C9pK

► The Independent, San Francisco, 2013 : https://youtu.be/6TwcMP_oYEY

► Blairstown, NJ, 2016 : https://youtu.be/YKEjVCd_wtA

Boyce and Malcolm

► With Samantha Fish, Sellersville, PA, 2016 : https://youtu.be/-UpgxvZ3N4E

► Shack Up Inn, Clarksdale, MS, 2020 :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/RAr-5c0pG44

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/u1Tn6qU12pI

► Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival, Clarksdale, MS, 2021 : https://youtu.be/XUvTfUFcm5k

► With drummer Clark Winkle, R.L. Boyce Picnic, Como, MS, 2021 : https://youtu.be/rYI8JEKojuM

► With Tab Benoit, The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA, 2022 : https://youtu.be/OgvajuuvdK0

++ Some 25 performances of Lightnin' Malcolm are available for legal free listening and/or download at : https://archive.org/details/LightninMalcolm?tab=collection