The assassination of Blue Dragon

 
Autopsy of a murder

Though it really hurts me to announce such a heartbreaking news, it's my duty to inform that my exclusive partner Blue Dragon has been ruthlessly closed down by Blogger/Google just a few days ago !

Blue Dragon was going to celebrate its eighth birthday this month, the cream of blues-influenced music blogs, always posting original albums far from the mainstream, under the strict management of its two impassioned blog-masters. Blue Dragon was my exclusive partner since January 2022, and we had a great time all along.

This decision from the Big Brother of the blog world is all the more unjust that it certainly results from repeated denunciations by malevolent blog visitors  who didn't accept BD's very strict rules, first of all the engagement not to share the albums with anybody or any other blogs. Some didn't want to abide and found nothing else to have their mean petty revenge than to destroy an eight-year work. Just disgusting ! 

How else to explain that while Blue Dragon went through its difficult last months, so many similar blogs have lived their life quietly without any hassle from the copyright patrol ?

From last August Blue Dragon started to receive infringement notices from a mysterious London office, and seeing some posts put back to draft without notice (nor any real logic) directly by Blogger/Google. When contacted for explanations, none of these entities ever answered !

Without its partner, Onurblues' future is uncertain. I'm presently thinking about a way to continue with a different concept... I'll keep you informed right here.  ■ Onurbix 

► Let's mourn Blue Dragon's passing with all due musical honors : https://youtu.be/b_awCl-qYM0 (music : Kermit Ruffins, "When I Die, You Better Second Line")

► Blue Dragon's address was jellyrollbaker.blogspot.com. Here are some “Jelly Roll Blues”,”Mr Jelly Roll Baker” and other “Jelly Roll” stuff :
> “Jelly Roll Blues”
→ Jelly Roll Morton : https://youtu.be/BcOyVW-8WYo
→ Louis Armstrong : https://youtu.be/8VegtJxgY6o
→ Bukka White : https://youtu.be/Uv1P69xveUE
→ Jimmie Davis : https://youtu.be/_8tK2Fr3_Yo
→ Jorma Kaukonen (1978) : https://youtu.be/koF4_8BFb_Y
→ Gerald French & the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, "Jelly Roll", New Orleans, 2013 : https://youtu.be/PjBrWtcAwW0

> “Mr Jelly Roll Baker”
→ Otis Spann : https://youtu.be/x6rU5LIVYCQ
→ Lonnie Johnson : https://youtu.be/1HepVzZ5gPE
→ Frankie Lee Sims : https://youtu.be/8d-PJjCctjE
→ Leon Redbone : https://youtu.be/-9Jyx2jxIQU
→ John Martyn : https://youtu.be/nIgr_OTgW8Y
→ Joe Bonamassa : https://youtu.be/wM3-AVnUX6g and https://youtu.be/_dN521Py2Sk

> And also...
→ Charlie Mingus, “My Jelly Roll Soul” : https://youtu.be/wzNuG8q2Xh8 and “Jelly Roll” : https://youtu.be/aGF76md7e3Q
→ Johnny Dodds, “Mr Jelly Lord” : https://youtu.be/YaeiarwYdpE
→ The French Quarter Pounders, “Ain't gonna give nobody none of my jelly roll”, New Orleans, 2023 : https://youtu.be/yckYUhqKb5s

> Even in Japan they have a band called The Jelly Roll Baker Blues Band. Live, 2009 : https://youtu.be/H43uIdyfSy8

The Super Catch-Back, vol. 6 & 7 : Papa John Creach - L.V. Banks - Sue Foley - John Cephas & Phil Wiggins - Jimmy "Duck" Holmes - Jimmy Thackery & The Drivers - Waylon Thibodeaux - Hans Olson - Tab Benoit - Jeff Ray & Hurricane Harold - V.A.-Texas Guitar Summit

... they deserved to be featured here…

Papa John Creach - Papa Blues (with The Bernie Pearl Blues Band) (1992, reissue 2015)

One last one for the road
to the next world

I discovered Papa John Creach on Hot Tuna famous album “Burgers” back in 1972. The presence of a violinist (or fiddler) on a blues album was a surprise but a good one. Actually, if the fiddle was one of the primary instruments of Old time music (pre-bluegrass Appalachian folk, early Cajun music, country & western, jug bands…), it was also used in the early times of Blues.

Before WWII, Lonnie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy in the first years of his career, Lonnie Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks, did play violin, and of course later, the great Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

The Super Catch-Back, vol. 4 & 5 : Boney Fields - Maria Muldaur - Toronzo Cannon - Tab Benoit, Debbie Davies, Kenny Neal - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Cyril Neville - Wes Montgomery - Buckwheat Zydeco - Kenny Burrell & Jimmy Raney

...they deserved to be featured here…

 

Boney Fields & The Bone's Project - Red Wolf (2003)

Howlin' Fields

The wolf is howling and growling out there in the background, red like a chili pepper and hot as the infernos. On the cover, with his dark bowler hat, wicked eye and sharp teeth ready to tear your flesh, he's fronting a jungle jumble of fearsome musical animals, and from the CD disc he's throwing a threatening look at you.

This is not Howlin' Wolf but Boney Fields, and “Red Wolf” is a highly enjoyable album by the champions of funk jubilation, Boney Fields and his Bone's Project band, one of the baddest horn section on the circuit today (Fields on trumpet, Nadège Dumas on tenor sax, Max Pinto on baritone sax and Pierre Chabrèle on trombone).

Clifton Chenier - Live at Montreux 1975 (1995)

→ Order the album at the usual place...

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)

→ Get the album at the usual place...

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.)

→ Get the album at the usual place...

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

→ Get the album at the usual place...

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)

→ Get the album at the usual place...

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)

→ Get the album at the usual place...

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)

 → Get the album at the usual place...

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…