Brother Magnum & The Razor Bumps - Feel Like A King (2010)

> The album

Who the hell is the real Brother Magnum ?

That's the big question ! Some will answer very logically that he is the leader of the Texas blues band Brother Magnum & The Razor Bumps. What perspicacity ! Some will assert it's the nickname of a Texas bluesman. Oh… really ? ! Some other smart ones will explain that "Brother" is the way an Afro-American call a fellow black person : "Hey brother, wa go on  ?" Maybe true, but still doesn't answer the question : who is Magnum ? Is it the real name of the guy or… Oh, come on, shut up ! That's nothing to do with the TV series ! Neither with an extra-size bottle of Champagne nor with a famous ice-cream ! Not with the Böker-Magnum knives brand either ! Pffff ! We're talking of music ! Blues, RnB, funk, soul… MU-SIC ! Y'understand ? ! Arrrgh ! I'm close to getting nuts ! Oh damn, forget it ! Who cares anyway ?!!

All we do know about the guy is that he was born in California, but we don't know when, and raised among seven siblings, a military father with Afro-Cuban roots and a mother of Native-American lineage. His father's military career took the whole tribe from California to Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and Florida… An itinerant youth that exposed the mysterious Magnum to different social, cultural and musical facets of America, and certainly explains the blend of styles that characterizes his music.
If we don't know his real name, we do know yet some of the ones he gave to his guitars, all Stratocaster-types : "Child", his special favorite, a black Strat baptized "Domino", a blue custom one named "Ms. Kandi" specifically built for him by Jason Spradley from Jason’s Guitars…
We also know he's based in Austin. And that's all ! The rest remains to be discovered...

As for this album, apparently his third one as Brother Magnum, after "Tales From A Bad Man" in 2001 and "Meet Me In My Daydream" in 2008 (also available on Blue Dragon), it features a kind of catalog of different ways to approach contemporary Texas groove : rocking blues, rhythm'n'blues, funk, Texas swing, straight blues… always with a solid dancing beat, soulful vocals and no other aim but to bring a good time to people. All eleven songs are originals written by Magnum.

Magnum's mix of styles will certainly sound very appealing to many listeners, from the rocking "Amen-Try Again" and "Addicted To You" to the judiciously titled R'n'B "Funky Foot Woman" (probably the outstanding track of the album) and the equally funky "The Divorce Song", from more classic blues like "Bad Apple", "Paying Dues, Playing Blues" to songs more difficult to classify like the soppy soul "King", the popish "Gambler And A Preacher" or the mellowish "Mountains And Rain Drops" despite its interesting guitar weaving.
The nice-sounding acoustic version of "Cocaine Sheila", a track originally released on "Meet Me In My Daydream", is another great moment, as well as the so-called hidden track "One Drunk Apple", a jolly piece of studio jam fun.

◄ Mike Barnes

But the real noticeable thing about this album is Magnum's voice texture itself, a warm husky vocal style that I understand is much appreciated by Blue Dragon's high priests, our friends Blue DeVille and Lou Cypher. As for the Razor Bumps, they're all putting their good swinging spirit in the job, with a special mention for the excellent work of Mike Barnes on lead guitar.
Personally, though I haven't been really convinced by the global atmosphere of this package, I wouldn't dare diverting members of the BD community to listen and enjoy it. ■

Interviews

● A series of itws with BM gathered on SonicBids : https://www.sonicbids.com/band/brothermagnum/

Album
● Other album available on Deezer
→ Fire And Steel : https://www.deezer.com/en/album/1189620


Live videos

● Most of the available videos from BM with The Razor Bumps and with his former band Dysfunkshun Junkshun, are on this Magnum151 YT channel : https://www.youtube.com/dysfunkshunjunkshun/videos


● In studio at a local TV station in Sept 2010 :

→ "The Divorce Song" : https://youtu.be/qJ-AYh-fdko
→ "Cocaine Sheila" : https://youtu.be/1Na0GSpjBTM
→ "Funky Foot Woman" : https://youtu.be/EQsqMLlzt2Y
→ "Addicted to You" : https://youtu.be/vTWd3fWik_0
→ "Good Lovin' Feeling" : https://youtu.be/rplqUUH3SFk
→ "Mexico" : https://youtu.be/jlYNRvUW1KQ
→ "Have A Good Time" : https://youtu.be/-xoLSCKS4M4
→ "Love Me Woman" : https://youtu.be/rplqUUH3SFk

● At Antone's Club in Austin : 
→ in 2008 : https://youtu.be/NeaDNFV5S34
→ in 2013 : https://youtu.be/tYT21YAo5-4 & https://youtu.be/8SDP6HuQKFI

● At Maggie Mae's in 2008 (Pat Myers : guitar, lead vocal - Selton Cole : bass, vocal - Bob Fulton : keyboards - Roland Perez : sax - Will Chomycia : drums - Mike Barnes : guitar) : https://youtu.be/9CtJBtdc7nY & https://youtu.be/b1WrUa04Kx0 ("Bad Apple" )

● "Nee-Mo Money" : https://youtu.be/klH8QgihcCc

● The making of… "All The Time" : https://youtu.be/erglrqo7Rns

● "Fire and Steel" : https://youtu.be/gwtrGvLiPiE

Discography
→ 2001 - Tales From A Bad Man
→ 2008 - Meet Me In My Daydream
→ 2010 - Feel Like A King
→ 2011 - Fire And Steel
→ 2013 - Electrified Soul

What Brother Magnum is not

😜
 _________________________________

Clarence Edwards - Swamps The Word (1991, re-issued 1999)

> The album

Juke-joint blues from swampland

This album has a personal sound of its own. With his raw amplified guitar sound and his straightforward voice, Mr Clarence Edwards is certainly one of the best of the Louisiana bluesmen almost ignored by history. That big record companies' talents scouts that hang around juke-joints and clubs could pass away from a guy like that is just unbelievable !
The first one who have "seen" Edwards' talent was Louisiana State University ethno-musicologist Harry Oster who recorded a few field tracks from him with his brother Cornelius and fiddler Butch Cage between 1959 and 1961.

Clarence Edwards was born in 1933 in a small village just north of Baton Rouge, and was about 20 when he started to perform in juke-joints and clubs with his brother Cornelius in local bands, the Boogie Beats, then the Bluebird Kings. A life that could be dangerous sometimes : one day, after a show at a club in Baton Rouge's Alsen district, he was shot in the leg in a brawl outside the club.
In the seventies, while working in a scrapyard to earn a living (a job he kept for some thirty years), Edwards recorded again a dozen titles that were scattered in different compilations.

By the early eighties, while the disco-mania had emptied juke joints and blues clubs, bluesman Tabby Thomas opened a new club in Baton Rouge, Tabby's Blues Box, that immediately attracted all the frustrated Louisiana bluesmen and of course Edwards whose career was re-boosted, this time drawing attention from young producer-manager Stephen Coleridge who opened the doors of the national blues clubs and festivals circuit to him.
Still he had already reached the age of 57 when he was able to record a full album under his name : "Swamps The World".

This album is like a water hyacinth flower that searched for light and slipped through duckweed and waterlilies up to the surface of the swamp. It's been recorded in a couple of days in February 1990 with really excellent partners : Harmonica Red (no need to precise on which instrument !) stands out brilliantly, Michael Ward adds a vintage Louisiana country sound with his fiddle, Henry Gray's piano (and Bill Guess') brings a New Orleans touch, and the beat is solidly maintained by Antony Hardesty's great job on bass, and Lester "Pick" Delmore's on drums, helped by a few others on diverse percussion (even cardboard box !)

The whole album is sweating with dampy Louisiana groove. Mixing acoustic and amplified numbers, Edwards shows his sense of humor in his choices of the topical songs he covers, from Lightnin' Hopkins, Guitar Slim, Rufus Thomas and Muddy Waters, to Buster Benton, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup or Willie Dixon… These are mixed with four Edwards originals : "I'm Your Slave", "Lonesome Bedroom Blues", "I Want Somebody", and "I'm The One", adapted from a traditional.

It alternates stimulating rocking tracks like "Stoop Down Baby", the feet-stomping "Chewing Gum", "Walking The Dog" and "I Want Somebody" or the sincere "Born With The Blues" featuring great work from Harmonica Red; and acoustic pieces like "Driving Wheel", or the shuffling "Done Got Over It"  with its zydeco feel : Michael Ward's fiddle replacing the accordion over a background of clapping, washboard and guitar rhythm. As a matter of fact Edwards always used to have a fiddler on stage with him, reminding another Clarence : "Gatemouth" (except that this one played the fiddle himself).

Edwards style is typical of the south Louisiana rural raw dancing music played in noisy juke-joints and clubs. His voice has soul and power, and his guitar is played in a simple but very effective way.
This album, and the two that followed ("Swampin'" in 1991 and "Louisiana Swamp Blues, Vol. 4" in 1992) gained Edwards good praises from the blues community, but unfortunately, in 1993, at only 60, death robbed this growing fame from him. ■


THE live video
► At the St Louis Blues Festival in 1990 : https://youtu.be/4FyAsVAsuII

Audio only oldies
► Clarence Edwards (guitar & vocal), brother Cornelius Edwards (guitar) and James "Butch" Cage (fiddle), recorded near Baton Rouge by Dr. Harry Oster in 1960 :
→ "Mean Old Frisco" : https://youtu.be/_H0tnNnlC7g
→ "Smokestack Lightnin'" : https://youtu.be/Ck4bOiJvfrw
→ "Stack O' Dollars" : https://youtu.be/sbtTeP95A3o or https://youtu.be/YNFpdOFAknM
→ "Thousand Miles From Nowhere" : https://youtu.be/AUtDsHqpd_0

► Clarence Edwards, Henry Gray, Arthur "Guitar" Kelley, Silas Hogan & Moses "Whispering" Smith (from the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 1970 album "Louisiana Blues") :
→ "How Many More Years" : https://youtu.be/pcLTW6Rfdh4
→ "Hear That Rumbling": https://youtu.be/JLD1IYd0fUA

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Mark "Muleman" Massey - One Step Ahead Of The Blues (2014)

> The album

Soul blues of the Muleman

Born in 1969 in Clarksdale (Mississippi), at 22 he spent two and a half years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary of sinister reputation better known as Parchman Farm (May 1991-November 1993), condemned for drug dealing and shooting at his elder brother.
Fortunately his brother was only wounded, if not he probably would still be inside, or even worse ! Fortunately also, in Parchman Farm, where famous bluesmen Bukka White and Sonny Boy Williamson among others preceded him, he bought a guitar ("for 28 dollars, that's all I had" he recalls), and learned how to play it from inmate David Kimbrough, son of Jr. Kimbrough, before joining the Parchman Prison Band. ▼

Once out, he raised mules (hence his "Muleman" nickname) in his little farm while working week days in a tire shop in Senatobia, in the Hills country, and met Big Jack Johnson who took the succession of David Kimbrough as his mentor and friend, and opened to him the doors of the blues juke joints and clubs circuit.

◄ Don Nix
"One Step Ahead of the Blues", Massey's second album, was co-produced by Memphis Stax Records legend Don Nix, who signed or co-signed seven of the thirteen tracks. It's as much a Nix album as a Massey's one, featuring an impressive list of veteran blues musicians : Eric Gales on guitar, Garry Burnside on bass, and the excellent Grammy/Emmy awarded Billy Earheart on Hammond organ and piano, plus Willie Clayton ("In The Hole") and Bobby Rush ("She's Hongry").

"Muleman" and Billy Earheart ►

Though often presented as a Hills country bluesman, Massey's album featuring a horn section, definitely sounds like Memphis soul. Massey's powerful and soulful vocal and guitar dominates this rhythm'n'soul production, many times leaning towards funk'n'soul : "Plastic Flowers", "In The Hole", "Blind, Crippled And Crazy", "Double Trouble", "She's Hongry" (sic). No matter what style, the whole album has a real groove, even on the gospel "Waiting On The Help To Arrive", or on Massey's final moving ballad "Sun Going Down In Memphis".
If you watch the videos of "the Muleman" below, you'll discover a man totally bewitched by the music in which he found his redemption : the blues. ■

Documentary
► A video portrait of the "Muleman" : https://vimeo.com/232376569

Live stream perfs & interviews

► Virtual confined jams and interviews via Zoom :
→ in May 2021 : https://youtu.be/xWoghLUcLVQ
→ in December 2020 : https://youtu.be/RAQafMANNBA
→ in November 2020 : https://youtu.be/8HFuOJl-Uto
→ in July 2020 : https://youtu.be/gJoc34Sk3c4
► On the Local Yokels radio show  :
→ in 2019 (skip first 3 mn) : https://youtu.be/gXivtcd4al4
→ in 2018 (skip first 3 mn) : https://youtu.be/sISUtY1PL5I

►A Maryland's Sandy Spring Museum live stream solo and acoustic perf. during the Covid confinement (go straight to 1h13mn) : https://youtu.be/sUMN85YriyQ
► On the National Blues Museum's  Howlin' Fridays in 2020 (skip first 17 mn) : https://youtu.be/30HgL8h8AKs
► At the Crossroads Confined Countdown Festival : https://youtu.be/rQecNxQ8VoQ

Pre-confinement live performances videos

► With the Robbert Fossen Blues Band in Haarlem (Netherlands) in  2020 :
→ https://youtu.be/WO8pbgIHw24
→ https://youtu.be/MbTrote8YYg
→ https://youtu.be/ITehCo-e0cQ

► At the GrassRoots Blues Festival
→ in 2020 (skip first 3 mn) : https://youtu.be/osdjoSCVFl0
→ in 2016 : https://youtu.be/QszPxmzLdgM & https://youtu.be/H2qrDlzww8s

► "All Night Long" at Blues Rules 2017 : https://youtu.be/TA9BBqYIVzA
► At Bluesday Tuesday, Overton Square, Memphis, with Billy Earheart (keyboards), Tory Todora (bass) and Joel Williams (drums) in 2015 :
→ https://youtu.be/pTN2abGuro0
→ https://youtu.be/HBh2cgGDTX8
→ https://youtu.be/VK73jYfrQ9Q
→ https://youtu.be/53n5rWeyYDw
► At the Rum Boogie cafe in Memphis in 2015 : https://youtu.be/Gkvhw1_316Q
► At the Howlin' Wolf festival 2011 : https://youtu.be/uvdx_g003uk

► At Clarksdale's Ground Zero Blues Club
→ in 2011 :
- https://youtu.be/o9SUwXEvvdo
- https://youtu.be/qZg6IeGme2g
- https://youtu.be/3ZAj0s4pTgs
- https://youtu.be/FW4L0V26cmg
- https://youtu.be/cTHudrzieNI
→ in 2010 :
- https://youtu.be/xEAc1E8XvCI
- https://youtu.be/BRWVC9blTV4
- https://youtu.be/no5zVdPb4-g
► At BB King's on Beale St., Memphis, in 2009 : https://youtu.be/58Wf8nwZvRc

___________________________________ 

Roy Book Binder - Bookeroo! (1988)

> The album

Ramblin' Roy's swinging hillbilly blues

For our readers not deeply familiar with the subtleties of English-American language, "bookeroo" has been jokingly coined from the word "buckaroo" meaning "cowboy" or "cowhand", and derived from the Spanish word "vaquero" used under the mid-19th century in Tejas (Texas) and the south-west territories (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Southern California). This being clarified, don't go too fast and conclude that Roy Book Binder is a country & western musician, you'd get it all wrong.

With Pink Anderson ►

No, Binder's stuff is vintage Piedmont style folk & blues ragtime guitar (sometimes adapted to "hillbilly" and bluegrass material), a style that he learned in the early 1960s straight from Rev. Gary Davis and Pink Anderson.

With Rev. Gary Davis ▼

Born in Queens (New York) in 1943 as Paul Roy Bookbinder, RBB sailed around the world on an aircraft carrier with the U.S. Navy in the beginning of the 1960s : he legendarily bought his first guitar in Naples (Italy), heard his first Lightnin' Hopkins record in Marseilles (France) and read his first Jack Kerouac novels while cruising the North Atlantic. In 1965 he landed back in New York's Greenwich Village in time to catch the folk revival and befriended folk singer Dave Van Ronk, met Rev. Gary Davis, became his student, even working as his driver and touring companion for some times. Later on, he met an old South Carolina medicine show performer named Pink Anderson. He learned as much of both men songs, stories and guitar styles as he could.

His first album came out in 1971 and its title, "Travelin' Man", already symbolized a major aspect of RBB's personality. In the late 1970's, after a three-year duo partnership with fiddler Fats Kaplin and eager for the open road, he bought an Airstream motor-home and for about the next 20 years lived in it, touring the country coast to coast, rambling from clubs to coffeehouses and festivals along the way. "Twenty plus years of living full time in 'the bus' make for an interesting take on what's what and who's who", he commented once.

After leaving the sedentary life, it took him a decade before entering again a recording studio, in Nashville in 1988 : the result is "Bookerro!", a perfect demonstration of his unique brand of swinging hillbilly country blues and of his storytelling talent as a writer and a singer, released in a sleeve cover illustrated by photos of RBB in his motor-home.

With his thick mustache, metal-circled spectacles and broad-brimmed hat, RBB, now 78, looks like a modern-day Mark Twain ! He continues to tour and has at heart to transmit his craft through instructional books and DVDs, or workshops (like at Jorma Kaukonen's famous Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio).

Mark Twain is back! ►

In "Bookerroo!", his acoustic songs are enhanced by a backing band featuring bass (Mark Hembree) and percussions (Kenny Malone), the excellent dobro guitar of Jerry Douglas, the mandolin and fiddle of Stuart Duncan, and the harmonica Phil Gazell on a couple of tracks...
In his very personal covers of other authors' works ― Louisiana bluesman Jesse Thomas ("Friend Like Me"), folk-blues artist Paul Geremia ("Somethin' Different"), country singers Merle Haggard ("Nobody Knows I'm Hurtin'" and Jimmie Rodgers ("Waiting for a Train") or soul performers Percy Mayfield & Ray Charles ("Tell Me How Do You Feel") ― as in his own creations and most of all adaptations of oldies, RBB shows his skill for tasteful arrangements and his liking for exploring musical styles from different horizons (see detailed credits of each song below).

If Piedmont finger-picking guitar is the core of his trade, he also pecks here and there in the traditional repertoire  of American folk music styles : blues and ragtime, hokum and old Dixie jazz, but also country, hillbilly and, particularly here, bluegrass. Mr Binder is an American folk music encyclopedia all by himself, not talking about his amazing guitar playing skill and storytelling talent. 

This album has something of a road-book(eroo !) gathering humourous memories of a rambling life, be they personnal, like the talking folk blues "Gonna Get Myself A Motorhome", or be they "borrowed" from fellow songsters : the swinging blues rags "Friend Like Me", "Nobody Knows I'm Hurtin'" and "Tell Me How Do You Feel", the hilarious booze song "Gin Done Done It", the hillbilly "I'm Goin' Home", the rockabilly version of "Good Gal", the hobo ballad "Waiting for a Train", the double-entendre "Cigarette Blues" or the traveling song "My Road Is Rough And Rocky".

The whole package is so nice and jubilant that you can't manage to stop playing it back and back again, and it sounds better each time. ■

Detailed credits

Merle Haggard ►

→ 01. Friend Like Me (written by Jesse Thomas) Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Percussion: Kenny Malone - National Steel resonator guitar: Roy Book Binder.
→ 02. Gonna Get Myself A Motorhome (written by Roy Book Binder & Tom Moore) Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Fiddle: Stuart Duncan - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Percussion: Kenny Malone.
→ 03. Somethin' Different (written by Paul Geremia) Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Fiddle: Stuart Duncan - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Rhythm Guitar: Russ Barenberg.
→ 04. Mississippi Blues (arranged & adapted by Roy Book Binder from a Willie Brown recording for the Library of Congress) Bass: Mark Hembree - Guitar: Roy Book Binder.

◄ Jimmie Rodgers
→ 05. Gin Done Done It (arranged & adapted by Roy Book Binder from the lyrics of a 1920s song by 'Pigmeat' Pete & Cat 'Juice' Charlie) Guitar: Roy Book Binder.
→ 06. I'm Goin' Home (written by Roy Book Binder - inspired by Rev. Gary Davis' "I Will Be Alright Someday") Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Harmonica: Phil Gazell - Mandolin: Stuart Duncan.
→ 07. Good Gal (arranged & adapted by Roy Book Binder from a 1929 song of Charlie Spand & Blind Blake) Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Percussion: Kenny Malone.
→ 08. Nobody Knows I'm Hurtin' (written by Merle Haggard - first released on his album "I Love Dixie Blues") Guitar: Roy Book Binder.
→ 09. Waitin' For A Train (written by Jimmie Rodgers) Bass: Mark Hembree - Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Fiddle: Stuart Duncan - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Percussion: Kenny Malone.

Percy Mayfield & Ray Charles ►

→ 10. Cigarette Blues (arranged & adapted by Roy Book Binder from a 1938 song by Bo Carter) Bass: Edgar Meyer - Guitar: Roy Book Binder.
→ 11. My Road Is Rough And Rocky (arranged & adapted by Roy Book Binder from 'Cryin' Sam Collins) Dobro: Jerry Douglas - Fiddle & Mandolin: Stuart Duncan - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Harmonica: Phil Gazell - Percussion: Kenny Malone.
→ 12. Tell Me How Do You Feel (written by Percy Mayfield & Ray Charles) Bass: Mark Hembree - Guitar: Roy Book Binder - Mandolin: Stuart Duncan - Percussion: Kenny Malone.

Interviews

► Recent live stream on Godfrey Daniels' Live From 4th Street : https://youtu.be/2FHFoLWWbno

► About Rev. Gary Davis : https://youtu.be/zZg_71cOPc4

Videos
► At the Suwannee Spring Reunion in Live Oak, FL :
→ in March 2022 : https://youtu.be/LsmN1iObOMI
→ in 2017 : https://youtu.be/pfTkVr62ieQ
► Live stream concert at the New Orleans Jazz Museum (skip first 5 mns) : https://youtu.be/4gYjoFFX2Ts
► Live stream from Club Passim in Cambridge, MA (skip first 2 and ½ mns) : https://youtu.be/iHzXVbZnAqM

► At the Fogartyville Community Media & Arts Center
in Sarasota, FL :
→ unknown date : https://youtu.be/cutBDKnvJLs
→ in 2017 (10-part playlist) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGuKplPlhw0JS4Yklpj4CcgT6JKW4P7QE
→ in 2016  (10-part playlist) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGuKplPlhw0LtF2TEaDMNc2cpd32yN1ra
► At the Woody Guthrie Festival 2015 : https://youtu.be/2D8EnSSCzyE
► At Folk Alliance in 2014 : https://youtu.be/MrsShJKDYmw

► At the Acoustic Guitar Magazine studio in 2013 : https://youtu.be/PO-YAYQ8-Nw
► "Mississippi Blues" at the Side Door in St. Petersburg, FL, in 2010 : https://youtu.be/GyloYh2RtJQ
► "Travelin' Man" and banter at New Bedford Summerfest, New Bedford, MS, in 2009 : https://youtu.be/4CWo7agezAs
► Funny show at the Nova Scotia, Bristol (UK), in 2007 : https://youtu.be/GkaebVGg1Ik
► On the "Horses Sing None of It" cable television program in 1997 : https://youtu.be/OfjnVzNGkV4
► In Laureana di Borrello (Italy) in 1995 : https://youtu.be/rVh0c5pwFiU

________________________