May 22, 2022

Doug MacLeod - The Utrecht Sessions (2008)

"Never play a note you don't believe"
H
is name sounds like one of an antique Scottish Highlander but he rather looks like an old seaman with a tanned face carved by the sun, salt and winds of the ocean. Born in 1946 in New York, he grew up in St. Louis where he started to play guitar. Affected by a bad stutter, probably caused by child abuse, he discovered that singing helped him to overcome his handicap. So he started to sing too. He later joined the Navy, stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. On one of his off-duty time, he met a one-eyed country bluesman from Toano (Virginia) named Ernest Banks who taught him two principles that guided his life as a musician : "Never play a note you don't believe" and "Never write or sing about what you don't know about."

With George "Harmonica" Smith
Once discharged from the Navy, he moved to Los Angeles, where he met his second mentor and close friend George "Harmonica" Smith, and played with legendary bluesmen Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Lowell Fulson, Big Mama Thornton... He later relocated in Memphis where he now resides.

An extremely talented song-writer, or more properly a master story-teller in the original tradition of the blues, MacLeod has written over 300 original songs so far, among which many have been covered by numerous blues greats (Albert King, Albert Collins, Son Seals, Tabby Thomas, Joe Louis Walker, Coco Montoya, James Armstrong, Chris Thomas King, Billy Lee Riley…), and has put out an impressive discography of some forty studio & live albums since his first one in 1984. He also won a no less impressive list of music awards. As if it wasn't enough, he also co-wrote with Debra B. Schiff a mystery novel, "Murder At The Crossroads: A Blues Mystery", which came out in March 2022.

With this album uniquely composed of original songs, and recorded in Holland, a country he seems to cherish, MacLeod continues to take us back to the inter-war era of country blues when the songsters used to sing tales mixing symbolic stories and real life experiences. These twelve tracks are all magnificent and MacLeod's chiseled lyrics are full of popular rural poetry.

Two closely linked themes,  the flying of time and death, stand out  in tracks like "Horse With No Rider", the sorrowful "This Old River" with its "Midnight Special" gospel twist, the "The Long Black Train" boogie (a new version of the song released on his very first album "No Road Back Home"), the dark "The Demon's Moan", "Long Time Road" or the soul complaint "I Respectfully Decline".
The torments of love, a classic blues topic, also appear in the stomping "The Addition To Blues", the excellent out-standing folk "That Ain't Right", the swinging "Coming Your Brand New Day" and the heavily strummed "What You Got (Ain't Necessarily What You Own)". "Sheep Of A Different Color" is a protest-song in the 1960s style, while   "Where You'll Find Me" has a biblical twist a la Dylan.

His very rhythmical and highly skilled acoustic steel guitar finger-picking and slide style and his stomping foot (a full percussive instrument), are discreetly backed by an upright bass (Jasper Mortier) and additional percussion (Arthur Bont, particularly excellent on the opening track where he puts out an Indian tabla or African talking drum-like sound). MacLeod's voice forged by years of performing around the world sounds very much like that of an authentic black bluesman from the Mississippi Delta or the East Coast Piedmont region.
A real jewel of an album, trust me. 
Oh… yes, I was about to forget this ! The man gives each of his guitars a name : "Spook", "Buckwheat", "Mule" and "Dubb" (his Resonator guitars), "Little Bit" (his Gibson), "Biscuit" (a Taylor 712), "Moon", "Scrapper"... !

Doug MacLeod's site : https://doug-macleod.com

About Resonator guitars
"Spook"
"Resonate: A Guitar Story", a 90-mn documentary feat. Doug MacLeod, Mike Dowling, Catfish Keith and Bob Brozman : https://youtu.be/k7Nw8dQWL4c

Interviews
At the L.A. Guitar Festival, 2012 : https://youtu.be/4agIdfU_n0M
On Texas radio KPFT 90.1 FM, 2013 : https://youtu.be/VzfnHC9wzRA
On the Dutch De Blues Radio, 2018 : https://youtu.be/BN-03iyMuTg
In Maastricht (Holland), 2019 : https://youtu.be/LG3_qKYGnZU
With John Guregian for "Blues Deluxe" on WUML, 2022 : https://youtu.be/hRc4HpILxvo

Songs from the album, different live versions
"That Ain't Right" : https://youtu.be/1hYCxd_zCOk
"Coming Your Brand New Day" : https://youtu.be/RX_8VNo0ttQ
"Long Time Road" : https://youtu.be/qLH7ojrN9aQ
'I Respectfully Decline" : https://youtu.be/cwVrx3ad4xM

Live concerts videos
(where one discovers MacLeod's talent for story telling)
Center, with Pee Wee Crayton
The good ol' times, with Pee Wee Crayton, Big Mama Thornton, Charles Brown, Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson, Pasadena City College (California), 1982 :
30-minute show for The Folk Alliance, 2021 : https://youtu.be/mMIUVlF3QLE
From John Nemeth's Porch, Memphis, 2020 : https://youtu.be/WoJtjHkayo8
Mixed show and interview, Köln (Germany), 2018 : https://youtu.be/AbYNFoysL2U
In Geldermalsen (Holland), 2017 :
In Breda (Holland), 2017 : https://youtu.be/K59aHb80L1g
At Carl Butlers Gospel Lounge, 2017 : https://youtu.be/VVkYpeiywW4
With Terry Evans & Hans Theessink at the Danube Blues & Rock Festival (Romania), 2016 : https://youtu.be/6Dqv4jnjs38
Benefit concert for the Sarasota Community radio :
In Thornton, 2016 : https://youtu.be/QnDB6we63I4
Several versions of the famous song "The New Panama Limited"
In Leiden (Holland), 2018 : https://youtu.be/asCIKlojTCk
In Eaton (Ohio), 2016 : https://youtu.be/sINwYw65bhQ
In Holland, 2014 : https://youtu.be/6ZXgTjVXL80
In Eindhoven (Holland), 2014 : https://youtu.be/WG8T-vGyMQA
At McCabe's, 2012 : https://youtu.be/h2R8OTXJsxw
At Blues Spring, Vienna (Austria), 2014 : https://youtu.be/4hpUSGmMWck
In Maastricht (Holland), 2012 : https://youtu.be/M0TxsuXLcDo
On the Raven and Blues, 2012 : https://youtu.be/SxoRPZGhC4Y
In Ingelmunster (Belgium), 2004 : https://youtu.be/nfVCeEGwGOQ
At Cafe Boogaloo, Hermosa Beach (California), 2002 :
Set 1 (bad sound quality) : https://youtu.be/lNrhsEBq-IM
On the "Horses sing none of it" TV program, 2007 : https://youtu.be/wgY_oYocWYk
At Spagettini's, Seal Beach (California), 2000 :
At Cafe Voltaire, Ventura (California), 1997 : https://youtu.be/LkKg-Iy9pYo
At Sacred Grounds, San Pedro (California), 1992 : https://youtu.be/q4O_K8J09K0


The Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye,
on the western coast of northern Scotland,
where MacLeod's ancestors hail from
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May 15, 2022

Angela Strehli Band - Live From Rancho Nicasio (2001)

The album

Queen of Texas Blues
She was sexy even past 60, blonde (but not naturally), sung with legends like Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughan or W.C. Clark, with her one time accomplices Marcia Ball & Lou Ann Barton, with The Blues Broads (herself, Dorothy Morrison, Tracy Nelson & Annie Sampson), recorded a few solo albums, helped to manage and build the reputation of Austin renowned club and record label Antone's, and later of the Rancho Nicasio, an old mid-19th century stagecoach roadhouse set in the peaceful north of San Francisco Marin County, that her husband-manager Bob Brown bought and renovated in 1998. That's where this album was recorded.

With Muddy Waters
I'm not going to repeat here what's in the detailed biography joined to the album posted on Blue Dragon and mentioned below, except to remind that the lady was born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1945, and that her reputation as "Queen of Texas Blues" is much more considerable than her thin solo discography indicates : only one 3-track EP and four studio albums since her recording debut in 1986 (she was already 40). Let's also mention her joint ventures with Marcia Ball and Lou Ann Barton in 1990, and with the Blues Broads in 2012. The reason is that she appears on numerous "various artists" projects and compilations or as a guest singer on other artists works, and had an intense concert activity long before her first recording experience with musicians like those mentioned in the beginning of this review. Still she waited 2001 to do her first and only live album to date.

T
his one proposes solid Texas style rhythm'n'blues. Here and there a detail in Strehli's vocals or Schermer's guitar lines, reveals light country music echoes, nothing surprising for a Texan lady.
The twelve featured songs, technically very well recorded and mixed, see Strehli going through a kind of retrospective of her career. There's not one single under-level track on this live. The listener will take his pick of favorites according to his own taste.

Personally, if I was threatened to death to point out a few, I would mention "Just What It Takes", the groovy soul "A Stand By Your Woman Man", "Clean Up Woman" and "Stranger Blues" both illuminated by Schermer's top guitar work, the equally rocking "Tell Me Why", "Slipped, Tripped, Fell In Love" for the chorus vocal harmonies, "Howling For My Darling" ("whooo… hooo…"). But what about "Big Town Playboy", "It Hurts Me Too" or "You Don't Love Me" ? Wouldn't be fair not to mention these either !

T
he truth is that her excellent band is seriously rocking, Texas way, starting with Mike Schermer on guitar who certainly deserves his being dubbed "Mighty" and is undoubtedly the other attraction of this live. But the most impressive instrument of the lot is the lady's incredibly attractive husky vocal texture. Though she was then around 56, her voice is as powerful and full of energy as it was at her debut. Maybe more... In all cases, more sensual than ever. A perfect voice for singing the blues. 


More infos

Angela Strehli's bio : https://musicianguide.com/biographies/1608004819/Angela-Strehli.html
A 2010 interview with Angela Strehli : https://www.sacramentopress.com/2010/09/25/blues-on-the-green-2-interview-with-angela-strehli/
The Rancho Nicasio : https://ranchonicasio.com/
Aerial discovery of the peaceful Nicasio
village : https://youtu.be/Eqipl1zMkLQ

Live performances videos

At the Austin Blues Heritage Festival (with Major Burkes Blues Band, Mark Pollack, "Little" Charlie Sexton, W.C. Clark Blues Revue, Tex Thomas & the Wranglers,  Angela Strehli Band (from 29 :00 to 38 :45), and the Cobras, 1982 : https://youtu.be/Eaj_k_uSdKM
"Take Me To The River" with W.C. Clark & All Stars Texas Blues : https://youtu.be/sQWbcrLblAY
"Fool In Love" with Marcia Ball : https://youtu.be/q6s4jKusTXQ
"Stand By Your Woman", at the Frederikshavn Blues Festival, Denmark, 2007 : https://youtu.be/9A4c9pLYEYE
With The King Snakes, Denmark, 2007 : https://youtu.be/SZ4tubvfuaA or https://youtu.be/HaUmvU3TqAk
"Boogie Like You Wanna" with the Cobras, Austin, 2010 : https://youtu.be/RHh9dUq75Io
With Marcia Ball and Lou Ann Barton, at Antone's, 2017 :

https://youtu.be/_HCs2KScQrs

With Tommy Castro & the Painkillers and Deanna Bogart at Rancho Nicasio, 2021 : https://youtu.be/xmlmGddoliU
Birthday perf., 2021 : https://youtu.be/-7cUYzn2uis

With Stevie Ray Vaughan
With SRV, Jimmie Vaughan, Jeff Beck and Kim Wilson, Hawaii, 1984 :
"You Were Wrong" : https://youtu.be/HfZDaJfUMXE
"Don't Fall For Me Baby " : https://youtu.be/zlDlfIzVVY0 or https://youtu.be/4p1VDHzoFiE or https://youtu.be/B8QlL2iY7Xo
 

► The Blues Broads: Angela Strehli, Dorothy Morrison, Tracy Nelson & Annie Sampson
"Oh Happy Day", 2012 : https://youtu.be/agN_BnlIacw
At the Festival de Blues, Lucerne (Switzerland), 2013
 : 8-part playlist
From the 2014 DVD) :
10-track playlist
"Take My Love With You", at Rancho Nicasio, 2017 : https://youtu.be/EvhntGWjuN4
"Oh Happy Day", at Rancho Nicasio, 2021 : https://youtu.be/MTv7SOQsuC0

► With "Mighty" Mike Schermer
Denmark, 2007 :
"Boogie Like You Wanna" : https://youtu.be/PU6PjqW8kdw
"Kiddio" : https://youtu.be/EcUuBNrkMJk or https://youtu.be/LxxGxVIW9Ks
"C.O.D."  : https://youtu.be/LMl2fb13VcQ or https://youtu.be/7bVlRA8DrgY
"?" : https://youtu.be/mcKmzvFgGMY
"Big Town Playboy" : https://youtu.be/z85Ephqgzes

Mighty Mike Schermer and Friends - Live At Greaseland ! Vol. 2, 2021 : https://youtu.be/AvoKuy20JO8
- Mike Schermer : guitar/vocals
- Steve Ehrmann : bass
- Paul Revelli : drums
- Tony Stead : keyboards
+ Nic Clark : harmonica
- L'il Baby : vocals
- Kid Andersen : guitar, vocals, percussion and synthesizer.
















Nicasio, a small peaceful Marin County village

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May 13, 2022

Jimmy Smith - Back At The Chicken Shack (1960)

The B-3 master
T
here are two ways to appreciate an album such as this one. The first is to invite a pretty woman for a late drink by your place, install the CD or vinyl, turn your hi-fi to a low volume and let Jimmy Smith weave a cool relaxing ambiance in the background helping your romantic attempt to seduce the lady. The music is secondary. This is what I call the passive way.
The second way is to put your earphones on, put up the volume to a reasonable high, tune the equalizer to the appropriate settings, close your eyes and immerse yourself in the musicians work, trying to isolate and follow each instrument's part and see how they mingle together into the global result. (Note : this way doesn't forbid your feet to gently stomp the swinging beat.) This is the active way and it's rather my way.

The Incredible Jimmy Smith, as he was called, took the B-3 out of its traditional churchy gospel environment to the open as a full jazz instrument. Born in 1925 in Pennsylvania, he was already a skilled pianist since his early teens, playing in his father's entertainment show, when one day of 1955 he decided to buy a B-3 model. For a whole year, he studied the complex secrets of the instrument, practiced intensively and created his own style, before starting to perform in Philadelphia clubs in 1955 and in New York from 1956, where he was quickly remarked by famous Blue Note label bosses Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff who immediately put a contract on the table.

Considered to be the creator of a new genre, the "funk or "soul jazz", in the late 1950s-early 1960s, Smith did some forty recording sessions (!) for Blue Note between 1956 and 1963. "Back At The Chicken Shack" is from one of the 1960 sessions, actually the same one during which his album "Midnight Special" was taped.

Cool is THE word about this elegant album halfway between funky blues and jazz . Smith bubbling B-3 Hammond organ is cool, Stanley Turrentine's flamboyant tenor sax is cool, Kenny Burrell's laid-back jazz guitar is cool, and Donald "Duck" Bailey's background but essential drumming is cool.

This being clearly stated, let's add that the B-3 is a very intricate instrument, difficult to master. The whole apparatus weighs close to 200 kg ! Equipped with two manual keyboards, a pedal board, two sets of manual draw bars and one of pedal ones, numerous preset keys, built-in vibrato and chorus effects,  a unique harmonic percussion system, and a tone cabinet, it has to be coupled to an external Leslie speaker which produces the typical inimitable B-3 sound. Not surprising that it took an entire year to Smith to control such complexity.

The result, as it appears on this album, is as groovy as it is original. The five tracks on this record leave enough space for each of Smith accomplices to express himself through solo moments, starting by Turrentine.

Stanley Turrentine
The bluesy swampy swing of "Back At The Chicken Shack", though mostly dominated by Smith, sees Burrell going through a short but mellow solo. Turrentine affirms the presence of his warm hoarse sounding tenor sax on "When I Grow Too Old To Dream" and "Minor Chant", his own composition, where Bailey surges suddenly with his drums rolls. On the long Smith original "Messy Bessie", Burrell comes in front with a solo full of virtuosity. The final number, "On The Sunny Side Of The Street", a Jimmy McHugh-Dorothy Fields tune, sees Smith, Turrentine and Burrell alternate solo parts.

As for the discreet Bailey, the importance of his presence can be measured by imagining how the album would sound without him : it would undoubtedly lack something essential.


Infos & docs
History of the Hammond B-3 Organ : http://theatreorgans.com/grounds/docs/history.html
Excellent article on Smith on the "JazzProfiles" blog : https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/02/jimmy-smith-breaking-new-ground.html
A German documentary film on Jimmy Smith : https://youtu.be/u6s5rnLhcUQ or https://youtu.be/eUHXfPkWIbs

Live concerts videos
Donald Bailey
On Jazz Scene USA, 1961 or 1962 : https://youtu.be/m7ZuoB_4_8E or https://youtu.be/VmUIOPyjEic
At the Antibes Jazz Festival, Juan-les-Pins (France) with Roy Montrell on guitar & Donald Bailey on drums, 1962 : https://youtu.be/ZXsieoGSrC4
On the Jazz 625 TV program, with Quentin Warren on guitar & Billy Hart on drums, 1965 : https://youtu.be/AB6Lvo-lsIY or https://youtu.be/gobKu4UlxSA
On the BBC, 1965 : https://youtu.be/gobKu4UlxSA
In Denmark (with guitarist Nathan Page & drummer Charles Crosby), 1968 : https://youtu.be/5CA-5MqVD3g
At Salle Pleyel, Paris, with Charles Crosby on drums and Eddie McFadden on guitar, 1969 : https://youtu.be/U1mQzxx3zMI
Kenny Burrell
In Rotterdam (Holland), 1971 (list of musicians below the video) : https://youtu.be/kmW_pWeBbBc
Jam Session "Newport In New York", with Kenny Burrell, Roy Haynes, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Illinois Jacquet & James Moody, 1972 : https://youtu.be/eB0_L5NKgVE
The Jimmy Smith Quartet in Germany : https://youtu.be/t-Ztek1A7wo
With Herman Riley(sax, flute), Carl Rocket (guitar) & James Levi (drums) : https://youtu.be/VGCyoUpPIJc
Hammond Jazz live : https://youtu.be/VmUIOPyjEic
At the Vitoria Jazz Festival (Spain), 1983 : https://youtu.be/pXR_INxQvw0
In Pescara (Italy), 1983 : https://youtu.be/zNFp8WPyYPc
At the Blue Note Club, Tokyo, with Carl Locket (guitar), Herman Riley (sax) & James Levy (drums), 1992 : https://youtu.be/5ZAUuJyn8Jc
In Sori (Italy) with Kenny Burrell (guitar), Herman Riley (sax) and Grady Tate (drums), 1993 : https://youtu.be/qPxWpMMt2hI

The last concerts
In Leverkusen (Germany) with Mark Whitfield on guitar, Jimmy Woode on bass & Dowell Davis on drums, 2004 : https://youtu.be/HFabbicg1d8
In Bratislava (Slovakia), 2004 (same band as on preceding video) :











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May 12, 2022

Little Jimmy King - Something Inside Of Me (1994)

The album

Tormented soul

I've had this album for a good while, but I listened back to it for this occasion and I confess I had forgotten that it was so good. King's tortured guitar is a serious delight. King belongs to this post-Hendrix generation of bluesmen who emerged in the footsteps Robert Cray, Joe Louis Walker or the late Lucky Peterson, reviving electric blues in the late 1980s and the 1990s by incorporating some rock elements. People like Bernard Allison (Luther's son), Eddie Vaan Shaw Jr., Guitar Slim Jr., Ike Cosse, James Armstrong, Jimmy D. Lane, Sherman Robertson, Tab Benoit or Troy Turner (whose promising career was brought down by drug addiction, according to my excellent informant Lou Cypher from Blue Dragon)…

Emmanuel Lynn Gales aka LJK was born in 1964 (or 1968 according to some information channels) in Memphis and died of a heart attack in 2002. His twin Danuel Gales and his elder brothers Eric and Eugene are all blues guitarists. He chose his stage name in homage to his two heroes Jimi Hendrix (left-handed as himself) and Albert King, and actually joined Albert King's band as second guitarist in 1988. In 1991, he left his mentor to start a career of his own with his own band, The Memphis Soul Survivors, and recorded a first album. "Something Inside Of Me" is his second one.

T. Shannon (l) & C. Layton
J
udging by his tortured guitar style, the "something inside" is certainly a tortured soul, or at least a tormented broken heart : "There's something inside me that just won't let me be / My baby's gone and left me, and my heart's in misery..." Backed by Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section, drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon, by veteran Ron Levy on B3 organ (who also produced the album) and the Midtown Horns, King lets his torments pour out of his six-string. The sound of his guitar, totally up-front, is aggressively distorted and often using the wah-wah effect.

This re-appropriation of rock elements, a fair payback as rock did originally borrow a lot from the blues, is particularly evident on this album, and in this sense it's as much a kind of blues-rock album as an urban electric blues one. The influence of Hendrix bursts out from the opening barn-burner track "Under Pressure" throughout the whole record, unto the instrumental apotheosis of "Resolution #1" : though its title seems to be a wink to John Lennon's song "Revolution 1" on the Beatles' White Album, it is in fact much closer to the psychedelic universe of Hendrix.

Albert King
A more classic Chicago style blues like Albert King's "Can't You See What You're Doin' To Me" is given the same kind of rock treatment. The choice to cover Cream's song "Strange Brew" is equallyrevealing of this will to cross styles over. Still, songs like "Something Inside Of Me" and "Blues Been Good To Me" demonstrate that it is a real blues album in spirit. Three successive rhythm'n'blues numbers, "Baby, Baby", "Shouldn't Have Left Me" and "Unlovable", have a definite Memphis sound, due to the front presence of the horns and B3 organ. The final instrumental "Upside Down & Backwards", co-written with his brother Eugene, closes the album with a last demonstration of King's feverish guitar style.

As a matter of fact, by many aspects, in spirit if not in form, this album reminds me of Troy Turner's "Handful Of Aces" released two years earlier, this being obvious on a track like "Win, Lose Or Draw".
Classical orthodox blues aficionados might not like such an album. Too bad… I like it and I'm glad with that. 

Info

L. to r. : Eric, LJK, Eugene
Audio
"Left Hand Brand", The Gales Brothers' 1996 album
featuring Eric Gales, Eugene Gales & Manuel Gales aka LJK
(full credits below the video) :
https://youtu.be/1ZOA9t8HVKo



Videos
In studio at Rounder Records with Ron Levy and the Memphis Horns, session and debrief : https://youtu.be/3UgDcxqiSt0
With Albert King, Seattle, 1990 (amateur video) : https://youtu.be/yr6iMdwzSJM
With Khari Wynn, BB King's Blues Club, Memphis, 2001 : https://youtu.be/iGZFEQ1Cgrg
With the Memphis Soul Survivors (Michael Allen : Hammond B3 organ - Dywane Thomas : bass - Lannie McMillan : sax - Andrea Pizzuti : drums - Luca Marianini : trumpet), Porretta Soul Festival, Italy, 2000 : https://youtu.be/-IUKa23pd_4
Tribute to Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and SRV, BB King's Blues Club, Memphis, 1999 : https://youtu.be/mnnmfsiDHYg or https://youtu.be/gqYSIuG3ANA
At the Jimi Hendrix Guitar Festival, Seattle, 1995 : https://youtu.be/HgdE3CN3TPw & https://youtu.be/zjsI_KmnUGU
"Angel of Mercy", 1993 : https://youtu.be/uxWHqgPf-dc












 


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