Lightnin' Hopkins - Texas Blues Giant (the 1946-1954 recordings, 3xCD set, 2010)

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Po' Lightnin'

Samuel John Hopkins recorded between 800 and 1000 songs in his career! Though famous for his sunglasses he wasn't blind contrary to the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929) that he met around 1920. This encounter impressed the young Sam so much that he built his first guitar using a wood box and making the strings from a chicken house wire screen! He learned how to play it from his older brother Joel.

Hopkins left school and started an itinerant life, working from farm to farm, and also occasionally accompanying Jefferson on guitar at  religious gatherings, Jefferson who reputedly never let anyone play with him except Hopkins. In the late 1920s he teamed up with country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander, who was supposedly his distant older cousin, playing for tips at street corners and gigging in some low down blues joints.

Furry Lewis & Mississippi Joe Callicott : The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions (2007)

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Same day, same place...

Same day : July 21, 1968. Same place : Ardent Studios, Memphis. Same (British) producer : Mike Vernon. Same label : Blue Horizon. But two albums by two different future legends of country blues. This Complete Blue Horizon Sessions released in 2007 are in fact the joint re-issue of two older albums : “Presenting the country blues : Furry Lewis”, first released in 1969 in the UK and 1972 in the US, and “Presenting the country blues : Mississippi Joe Callicott”, originally released in 1970 in the UK and 1972 in the US. This 2007 edition presents a total of 10 additional unreleased tracks (original songs or alternate takes), two by Lewis, eight by Callicott.

Both musicians were contemporary and several aspects of their lives are similar : recording debut in Chicago in 1929/1930, period of retirement from playing, re-discovery during the early 1960s folk & blues revival…

"Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks & Oscar Klein - Blues Session (1979) / Philadelphia Jerry Ricks - Deep In The Well (1997)

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"Philadelphia" and "Avalon"

"Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks

Wow ! This guy knew personally the legendary Mississippi John Hurt, the man from Avalon !  He met him around 1963, accommodated him in his house for several weeks, played and recorded with him a couple of times, and naturally fell under his musical influence, later paying his dues by playing his songs or those he used to sing, at each concert or on his own albums. A guy like that can't be bad. Gerald Lawrence Ricks dubbed "Philadelphia" Jerry Ricks is much more than that : he's great  !

Big Jack Johnson - Daddy, When Is Mama Coming Home ? (1989) / Juke Joint Saturday Night (2008) / Big Jack Johnson & The Cornlickers - Katrina (2009)

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Juke-joint Johnson

Johnson was officially born in 1940 (actually in 1939), some 15 miles east of Clarksdale in Lambert, in a farming family. His father was playing fiddle, banjo and guitar in country and blues styles at occasional gatherings, and Johnson started to play with his dad in his teens, later following B.B. King's example and adopting the electric guitar.
In 1962, with harmonicist Frank Frost and drummer Sam Carr, they formed an informal on-and-off band called the Hawks later re-baptized the Jelly Roll Kings who recorded a few occasional albums over several decades.

Jay Geils, Duke Robillard, Gerry Beaudoin - New Guitar Summit (2004) & New Guitar Summit : Shivers (2008)

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Cool and swinging... again

All those who relished the two outstanding albums recorded by Duke Robillard & Herb Ellis (“Conversations In Swing Guitar”, 1999, & “More Conversations In Swing Guitar”, 2003) (1) will certainly also appreciate the two New Guitar Summit  releases. Both projects have a lot in common : top class guitarists and jazz groove and swing.

This time we have a trio : still basking in his recent successful “Conversations...” with Ellis, multi-style musician Duke Robillard is aboard this new adventure next to jazz guitarist Gerry Beaudoin, and the less expected atypical ex-rocker Jay Geils who converted to jazz after leaving his band, the famous J. Geils Band, in 1985 after a 15-year stretch of R'n'B-influenced blues rock and about as many studio and live albums.

Special Johnny Jones : I Was Raised On The Blues (1998) - In The House (live with Charles Walker, 2000) - Blues Is In The House (2001) - Can I Get An Amen? (live, 2007)

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Blues Is In The House !

Nashville is world famous as the capital of Country music, not Blues rather associated with Memphis. Still the Grand Ole Opry city also has a blues and R&B scene, and Johnny Jones was an active member of it for nearly fifty years.

Born in 1936 in Edes, Tennessee, John D. Jones Jr. moved to Memphis at age 13, then to Chicago in the early 1950s where he got under the influence of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, and worked regularly with Junior Wells and Freddie King (1)

Ryan Adams - Blood On The Tracks (2022)

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Dylan by Adams

Many artists have covered Bob Dylan songs, some have even released a Dylan song before Dylan himself (the Byrds with “Mr Tambourine Man”), some have recorded albums gathering their favorite Dylan songs, like Bryan Ferry (“Dylanesque”, 2007), ex-Steve Miller Band Ben Sidran (“Dylan Different, 2009), Texas guitarist Denny Freeman (“Diggin' On Dylan”, 2012) or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (“Dirt Does Dylan”, 2022), but none had covered an entire Dylan album, especially not the cult “Blood on the Tracks” (BotT). The only ones who gave it a try (a few did) are rather obscure musicians as the numerous videos I compiled for this page prove.

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 !

John Mooney - Telephone King (1980, 1990)

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Don't you steal my Mooney !

John Mooney is a curious man, he's supposed to be an outstanding slide guitarist, but his instrument keeps rather discreet on this album, or at least muffled by the other instruments. For example, on the great opening track “Wibble Whim She When She Walk”, one wonders if he had forgotten his guitar at home ! The song has a very definite New Orleans sound, with a three-piece horn section led by tenor sax man Rich Lataille, and joyfully mixes second line with rock'n'roll à la Fats Domino thanks to the prominent presence of the truly excellent Bob Cooper on piano. He's by far the key musician of the ten tracks of the album behind Mooney's enthralling hot and swinging vocal style delivered by a powerful deep and throaty voice sometimes bending towards vibrato.

Rebirth Jazz Band - Here to Stay (1984, 1997)

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First in the second line

The album opens with a 19-minute track. It's titled “Mardi Gras Medley” so that those who wouldn't know anything about the Rebirth Brass Band understand where the group comes from and what kind of music is awaiting them.

The RBB was founded in 1983 by a bunch of school mates from the Tremé district of New Orleans lead by Phillip "Tuba Phil" Frazier, his brother bass drum player Keith Frazier and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins. As can be guessed from their name, they wanted to reanimate the New Orleans brass band tradition : the marching bands performing at funerals and “second line” parades.