onurblues: Morris Cummings

Mister "Real Deal on Beale"

The title song "You Know I Like That" starts and you're hit by a blow : what a wild voice ! what an incredible harmonica ! This is vintage raging electric blues here, not imitation. Solid real-life experience Delta blues stinking hard life and tribulations from beginning to end. You know the guy isn't faking. It all comes from the guts, full of resentment and bitterness against injustice : injustice of being blind since the age of four, injustice of a family who sent him to an institution at the same age, injustice of poverty, injustice of lingering segregation despite the 1965 civil rights law, ten years after Morris Cummings was born in Clarksdale...

Still, Morris, his superb harmonica and his powerful voice have made their way to become renowned on Memphis Beale Street where he's been called "the Real Deal on Beale ", and received glorious awards and praise (rated one of the 10 best harmonica players in the world by Bluzharp Magazine, Mississippi Music Foundation’s “Lifetime Achievement Award”, and two Grammy Award for “Harmonica Player of the Year") after an almost life long struggle against the bad cards life gave him.

Examples ? Here are some . Less than a week before he was scheduled to leave for a 12-day tour of blues clubs in England, he lost his North Memphis house to foreclosure. He had three days to pack up and leave. Add to that 13 divorces (!), 12 children of whom only one is living with him, past trouble with the police, two bankruptcies, and multiple aborted hopes to have his sight partially restored by treatments… Looks like a really mean mojo was hidden in his cradle (infos from RAM Entertainment  https://ramentertainment.com/blind-mississippi-morris). So don't be surprised if he shouts a tough and rough hard-edged electric delta blues !

Blind Mississippi Morris
& Brad Webb (water color painting)

The album was recorded in 1995 in Memphis. Except for the final medley (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, J. L. Hooker), most of the songs were co-written by or with his Memphis native friend Brad Webb, a song-writer, guitarist, arranger, producer and sound engineer who also co-produced the album, most likely the one who had the idea to use old lamp amplifiers to give the album its vintage sound.
Morris, who incidentally is a cousin of Willie Dixon, is backed by the Pocket Rockets, a band he's been working with for a long time which includes the same Webb on slide guitar.

So lets go back to where we started : the title song "You Know I Like That". Rough powerful voice and aggressive slightly distorted blues harp (harmonica) over solid heavy work from the band which augurs the best for the rest of the record. That is soon confirmed with "Nobody Ever Gives Me What I Want" : Morris' wild vocals and harp is reminding Howlin' Wolf. Then, introduced by the short street-corner sounding "The Woman I'm Lovin'", the fast rolling "Good Evening"  offers unbelievable harp and great background guitar over heavy drumming.

Next are "Killing Kind" in the same vein, the excellent acoustic "Hwy 61" where Morris voice seems to come through a wall of water, "Funk N' See" and its chopped rhythm, the sticky swampy damp "Going Back To Louisiana" led by top guitar work from Webb (slide) and David Daniels, before the pounding "Junkyard Dog". "When A Woman Gets In Trouble" is slow and moody, featuring a B-3 organ while Daniel's guitar has some early B.B. King accents. Morris blues harp and vocals ere fine as always.

With Brad Webb

The treat goes on through "Lover's Moon", "Mean St" which well deserves its title and whose multi-vocal chorus reminds Injun chants, the acoustic mid-tempo boogie "Second Hand Store" and its hypnotic guitar line, the excellent jumping "Beale St. Tonight", and finally the great low-down "Medley" whose "dirty" sound transports you straight in the hot dusty Delta.

Morris, amazing both vocally and on his blues harp, is keeping the legacy of the blues, bringing it back to its original rebellious spirit, that of the Afro-Americans of the Delta still shackled in poverty and social injustice despite the abolition and the end of official segregation... ■

About BMM
→ BMM site : https://www.blindmississippimorris.com/
→ Q&A with Paula (?) and the audience, Delta Music Show, 2014 : https://youtu.be/vcRLw8Nx3yY

About Brad Webb

→ BW site : http://www.bradwebb.com/index.html
→ On Xperience Productions : http://www.xperienceproductions.com/brad-webb.html
→ On RAM Entertainment : https://ramentertainment.com/brad-webb-friends
→ On the Memphis Blues Society site : https://mbs.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=539640&module_id=143411

BMM Live

● 2021, New Orleans Jazz Foundation : https://youtu.be/Ufuhy7zwtgA

● 2019, The Blues At the Crossroads : https://youtu.be/jxOXGNJ2DmA

● 2018, Beale Street Music Fest., Memphis : https://youtu.be/kJZkE1PA_Yg

● 2017, B.B. King's Club, Beale Street, Memphis : https://youtu.be/ACtIdDTYbDo

● 2017, at the Blues City Cafe on Beale Street, Memphis : https://youtu.be/98kQUgZcnIc

● 2016, benefit concert for Preston Shannon at B.B. King's Blues Club, Memphis : https://youtu.be/qfiPx2-sD-M

● 2016, Blue City Cafe, Memphis : https://youtu.be/18bo11QmGyE

● 2015, "I'm A Man" with the Albert King Jr. Band : https://youtu.be/9HekMnVp_Ig

● 2014, The Beale Street Music Fest., Memphis :

→ #1 : https://youtu.be/TLpT1ALcJn8

→ #2 : https://youtu.be/3nyYqNobP7A

→ #3 : https://youtu.be/qlX5Q10ezAw

→ "Mojo Working" : https://youtu.be/S4CC_FO1F0M

→ "You got to find a friend" : https://youtu.be/EM35hx9KclM

→ "Help Me" : https://youtu.be/jWb2LyVPLvs

→ #7 : https://youtu.be/vd1eP2L2DKc

→ "Let It Roll" : https://youtu.be/ed4b9vaeA5g

→ "One Way Out" : https://youtu.be/bKrrxesERhg

→ "Scratch My Back" : https://youtu.be/sfQUkIGYFew

● 2014, "Death Letter Blues" with Frank Monteleone on guitar, Como (Mississippi) : https://youtu.be/kKVlEul7f-Q

● 2014, Delta Music Show : https://youtu.be/g_IqCrpFXis

● 2014, 1st annual Mississippi Saxophone-Harmonica Fest., Clarksdale : https://youtu.be/BoLr4T9BsS4

● 2014, "Trouble In Mind" (Muddy Waters Cover) with Frank Monteleone, Memphis : https://youtu.be/KIPmQvtS3C0

● 2013, Beale Street Music Festival, Memphis :

→ ? : https://youtu.be/Upw4VX0mdfc

→ "The Thrill Is Gone" : https://youtu.be/NgYC7nm2AJk

● 2013, "Hoochie Coochie Man" with Dustin Haigler on Hammond B-3 Organ, B.B. King's Blues Club, Memphis : https://youtu.be/5qOFUiVgkXg

● 2012, "Little Red Rooster" with Brad Webb, Beale Street Music Fest., Memphis : https://youtu.be/FNOBmRbUPPI

● 2012, "Cross Cut Saw", B.B. King's Blues Club, Memphis : https://youtu.be/3-L2_pochOg

● 2011, King Biscuit blues fest., Helena (Arkansas) with Brad Webb (slide guitar), Groove Parker (bass), Rodney Polk (drums) and David Pierce (B-3 organ)  : https://youtu.be/4oL8SuJIpe0

● 2011, "One Way Out", B.B. King's Blues Club, Memphis : https://youtu.be/BAFGBURa8qo

● 2011, Central BBQ, Memphis, with Brad Webb & Washboard Shorty :

→ "Little Red Rooster" https://youtu.be/okgfZaZLF1Y

→ ? : https://youtu.be/zTWW_g5QyzY