Clifton Chenier - Live at Montreux 1975 (1995)

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The pivotal King of Zydeco

This excellent live recording of the “King of Zydeco” in Montreux almost 50 years ago doesn't sound its age one bit. But something needs to be rectified first : this performance was not recorded in 1977 as mentioned on its different releases and on almost all so-called “specialized” webzines, but in 1975, on the 12th of July to be exact. Bravo to Blue Dragon follower, our friend Johntagle who first spotted the error! He also pointed out the messy transcription of some of the songs titles on the releases by different labels, on LP and later on CD.

Rory Block - The Lady And Mr. Johnson (2006)

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She and Mr. Johnson

Two years after Eric Clapton's double tribute to Robert Johnson (*), top country blues guitarist Rory Block tried her hand at it in her 100% acoustic style.

“The Lady And Mr. Johnson” is the precursor of her series of tribute recordings which now includes Son House (2008), Fred McDowell (2011), Rev. Gary Davis (2012), Mississippi John Hurt (2013), Skip James (2014), Bukka White (2016) and Bessie Smith (2018) (read details further below).

Ray Charles – Live 1958-1959 (1987 rel.)

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What'd Ray say

This is quite an interesting album (1) for people who, like me, are not so familiar with Ray Charles Robinson (1930-2004) except for his most famous hits like “The Right Time”, “I Got A Woman” and above all the iconic “What'd I Say” and “Georgia On My Mind” (not on this album because he hadn't recorded it yet; his did in 1960).

For example I didn't know he had played pure jazz like on the four “big band” instrumentals tracks filled with saxes and trumpets that open the album : “Hot Rod”, “Blues Waltz”, the excellent mischievous mambo-flavored “In A Little Spanish Town”, or the more classic jazz piece “Sherry” where he appears a skilled jazz pianist. Lesser did I know that he also played alto sax as he does here on “Hot Rod” & “The Spirit Free”!

¡Cubanismo! in New Orleans feat. John Boutté & The Yockamo All-Stars - Mardi Gras Mambo (2000

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Mambo gumbo

If you're crazy about authentic Cuban salsa (1) and jazz soaked in irresistible Afro-Cuban percussion and at the same time about New Orleans second line brass jazz and R'n'B groove, this album of the Cuban conjunto ¡Cubanismo! recorded in New Orleans with an array of local musicians, presented as John Boutté & The Yockamo All-Stars, was probably made specially for you!

One of the initiators of the project, producer Joe Boyd, qualifies this musical encounter as a “collision” between two musical cultures. The other initiator was the leader of ¡Cubanismo!, Cuban trumpet blower Jesùs Alemañy.

Reverend John Wilkins - You Can't Hurry God (2010)

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From gospel to blues and back : the Hill Country Gospel of the Reverend

This seducing album reminds me the great Charles Laughton's 1955 movie “The Night of the Hunter” where a dangerous preacher played by Robert Mitchum has the word 'Love” tattooed on the top of his right hand fingers and “Hate” on the left ones, an allegory of the constant fight between good and evil. And as far as we are concerned here, between Gospel and the music of the Devil, Blues.

Mitchum in “The Night of the Hunter”

Like his renowned father, Rev. Robert Wilkins, John Wilkins had Gospel tattooed on one hand, and Blues on the other one. And rather than opposing them, he fused Memphis soul-flavored gospel music and Delta and Hill Country blues into an appealing mix : not Love versus Hate, but Love and Hate together. “I haven't read nowhere in the Bible where the music will take you to hell”, he rightly used to say.

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.