Development of the British Blues and Rhythm

  --- show 12 ---     8-13-2014  
Geno Washington and Ram Jam Band    1966-68
John Mayall                                             1959-64

The main focus of today’s show will be on Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, another favorite in the R&B scene in and around London.  The Indiana-born Washington was deployed by the United States Air Force (one source says he was a Marine) to England beginning in 1961, and while stationed in East Anglia he began to make himself known around the London music spots.  Guitarist Pete Gage was putting together a new band when he sought out Geno in 1965, who had already decided to remain in England after his tour of duty, and invited him to join as the front man.  The Ram Jam Band seems to have had a fluid lineup, with little available notation on who played when except, as Geno explains, “Our bass player’s lungs collapsed and we had to get somebody to jump in right away.  So John Paul Jones (later with Led Zeppelin) played with us for about six months.”  Other familiar names include organist Dave Greenslade who had played in Chris Farlowe’s Thunderbirds and went on to a long career, saxophonist Buddy Beadle, and bari sax man and flautist Clive Burrow who had just left Zoot Money whom we’ll hear on our next show.  Under the management of the Gunnell agency, they became very popular on the R&B circuit and this was reflected in two highly successful live LPs.  Rik Gunnell, in addition to loaning the boys money for attire and equipment and booking them in his clubs, financed their first album and Hand Clappin’, Foot Stompin’, Funky-Butt ... Live! spent 38 weeks on the UK charts beginning in November of 1966, with sales proving sufficient for the Picadilly label to put out another live LP in September 1967, Hipsters, Flipsters. Finger Poppin' Daddies.  Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it, especially since they both made it to the top ten in the LP charts. 

We have already seen a couple of Rik Gunnell’s agency’s acts in the Jazz-styled Georgie Fame and the more Rock / R&B oriented Chris Farlowe, and it just might be that Gunnell preferred the Soulful leanings for the performers at his Flamingo club.  We already know that the audience had a substantial contingent of black American G.I.s anxious to hear the sounds they listened to at home -- the likes of James Brown, Wilson Picket, Junior Walker and Otis Redding.  The main competition, the Marquee, appeared to favor less R&B and a little more of the Rockier side of the Blues.  In Geno Washington, the Flamingo had the only straight up Soul singer that I have come across.  Sure, some of the others put out a fair amount of Soul in their performances, but the Ram Jam Band almost entirely filled their shows with a fine representation of American Soul music such as Detroit’s Motown sound, but more strongly resembling the Soul-shouting style of Memphis-based Stax Records. 

The group also had a handful of moderately successful singles sandwiched around the two live LPs, all included on the extended 2CD version of their third album, Shake a Tail Feather Baby! (January 1968), the CD set subtitled The Sixties Studio Sessions.  The band did release a fourth album, their third live set, in 1968’s release by Pye (I believe the parent company of Picadilly) Live - Running Wild before the band broke apart in the autumn of 1969.  Washington remained in London a while as a solo act before returning to the US, coming back to the UK in 1976 with a new studio release, Geno’s Back, and another simply titled Live, plus in 1979 That’s Why Hollywood Loves Me.

Away from music, Geno has written children’s stories and a war story, The Blood Brothers, as well as appearing as a motivational speaker.  He has also become a member of the Guild of Hypnotists, even occasionally including that as the first half of his shows before he gets into his musical portion.

As far as celebrity hookups, Geno met his wife Frenchie at London’s Bag of Nails nightclub, the same place her sister met husband-to-be Peter Noone (Herman of Hermits fame), making the two singers unlikely brothers-in-law.  That also happens to be the same club where Paul McCartney met his wife Linda Eastman.

Trivialities aside, we start today’s program with some of the singles the band put out between 1966 and 1968, with four of them hovering around #40 on the charts.  Their first release, Water, reached #39, followed here by the later album version of the B-side, Understanding, which was the last song on side one of the vinyl release and therefore had the additional repeated phrase Turn It Over included in its title.  We chose their next three B-sides, Beach Bash, All I Need and (I Gotta) Hold on to My Love (in order, from Hi Hi Hazel which stopped at #45, Que Sera Sera #43, and Michael matching Water at #39), all recorded in 1966 before the first live LP.  We finish off the set with more singles from 1967 and 1968.
We made our middle set with music from the 1968 Tail Feather album plus a pair of tracks unreleased at the time.  The last tune Dirty, Dirty is labeled on the CD as from 1967 but shows up on the singles listing as a 1972 A-side, so it is also likely unissued until long after the band fell apart..

Saving the best for last, we take a step back in time to close with a typically up-tempo live set from the album No Holds Barred (shared with Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, not represented here), which appears to be tunes lifted from the 1966 Funky Butt Live LP, an album pretty much unavailable for a reasonable price.  Geno was out of his element in the recording studio; “recording actually meant nothing to me, because you take me into a studio and I become somebody else suddenly.  There ain’t no crowd there, it’s just a (expletive deleted) wall up there.”  It just didn’t feel natural, so Gunnell arranged to have an invited audience brought into Pye’s Marble Arch Studio, enabling the combination of excitement and sound quality to come through in a fine representation of the Ram Jam Band and its lead singer.

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I like a term Richie Unterberger used in his profile of John Mayall for the All Music Blues edition.  I used to think of Mayall as the father of the British Blues, and he actually billed himself as such, but that just showed my ignorance regarding the stature of Alexis Korner.  Unterberger fittingly referred to Mayall as the elder statesman of the Blues.
John was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire on November 23^rd, 1933.  Early on, he would select music from his father’s collection to listen to, often including Leadbelly and Albert Ammons.  He started playing in his teens, moving from guitar to piano to harmonica while maintaining proficiency in them all.  After time in art school and military service in Korea, he worked as a graphic designer and began putting his musical abilities to use, presumably around Manchester.

We are fortunate to have in our collection an extremely rare CD entitled Time Capsule in which Mayall personally introduces us to his own recordings with the Powerhouse Five in 1957 and the Blues Syndicate dating from late 1962 or maybe 1963, precursor of course to his Bluesbreakers which he formed upon moving to London.  He rightfully states that the recording quality is atrocious, but the best of the bunch are instrumentals and we include a half dozen of them here along with his commentary.  Personally, I find particularly the earliest of these pretty listenable especially considering their historical value, but as the band expanded the sound quality drops, and there were a couple of classic Blues tunes I would have liked to include (Maudie, Got My Mojo Working) but found them truly unlistenable for radio purposes.  I acquired the disc many years ago from a cab customer / friend who worked at a company that printed discs and have never seen mention of its availability to the public.

John left Manchester for London in 1963 and pretty quickly decided to make the capitol his home, partially on the advice of Alexis Korner.  He tried to get his old band to join him but the security of their day jobs kept them in place, and Mayall claims that he spent a significant amount of time fronting some pretty lousy ensembles.  It couldn’t have been that long because by February 1963 he had the earliest formation of the Bluesbreakers.  The vinyl version of Looking Back was a nice foldout cover filled on the inside with photos of many of the various players who passed through the ranks, while the CD version lacks this but provides a full list of the members of each incarnation of the band including dates while they were together.  The first entry reports Bernie Watson on guitar, John McVie on bass and a returning player from the Powerhouse Four in Peter Ward playing drums.  They lasted until April 1964 when Mayall and McVie were joined by guitarist Roger Dean and his former Syndicate drummer Hughie Flint, this group staying intact through May 1965 when Eric Clapton took over on guitar. 

It was this second ensemble that recorded on December 7^th 1964 at Klook’s Kleek and released an album in the UK in March 1965 as John Mayall Plays John Mayall.  The optimistic liner notes were written by Alexis Korner.  Four of its dozen tunes also included Nigel Stanger on trumpet and slide saxophone.  I have inquired among horn players because this is not the only time I have heard reference to slide sax but no one has any knowledge of such a thing and I can’t even imagine how the instrument might look because it pretty much requires both hands on the keys to play a normal saxophone, although I have seen players going with two instruments simultaneously. Another curiosity I have stems from occasional references to a bass trumpet.  A tuba, perhaps?  No idea.

The same grouping actually put out its first single on May 8^th before the LP and a second the following April.  Selections from the live LP form our second Mayall set while some of the single sides are dispersed through the two sets

Seemingly always overshadowed by his personnel, John was a hard taskmaster with lots of turnover, but I’m pretty sure each of them found their tenure a strong learning experience.  John McVie stayed with Mayall the longest, lasting four years, but Mayall felt his drinking negatively affected his playing so, when Jack Bruce became available after his stint with Graham Bond, McVie was given the hook.  When Bruce abruptly departed to join Manfred Mann, Mayall reinstated McVie.  It was bass player Cliff Barton who suggested McVie, who was at the time a pop bass player so Mayall handed him a stack of LPs to take home and get the feel of the Blues.

When Clapton joined the band, they made some 1965 recordings for the Immediate label as well as some for Purdah before Decca re-signed Mayall in early 1966.  Details on these will be given when we use some on our next Bluesbreakers entry showing Clapton’s contributions to the Mayall legacy.  But without doubt what catapulted Mayall upon the music world was the “Beano” album, Decca’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, also being the first Mayall release in America.  Totally unexpected, the album reached the UK Top Ten and set the stage for Mayall’s continued success in the LP market while failing to have any impact with his 45s.

It was during Clapton’s tenure that Jack Bruce was with the band and, when Eric decided to take what turned out to be about a three-month break in Greece, Peter Green was installed in his place for only the last week before EC’s unscheduled return.  After Clapton announced his desire to leave to form Cream, drummer Flint decided a change of pace was in order as well, resolving that by joining Alexis Korner.  He will also show up with some other familiar faces almost a decade and a half later when we get to the excellent group with the simple name Blues Band.

Due to Mayall’s quick dismissal of Green upon Clapton’s return, Peter was not very anxious to accept the bandleader’s request to rejoin the Bluesbreakers, but Mayall’s persistence saw his return on September 18^th (or maybe June as another source represents) along with drummer Aynsley Dunbar, although Mick Fleetwood also spent some time in the span ending in May of 1967 when Green left to form Fleetwood Mac.  McVie would join him in August.  While with Mayall, only the album A Hard Road was released, but perhaps two LPs worth of other tracks have surfaced over the years so there will be much to choose from when we get to their portion of our series.
Adding to the list of Mayall’s notable guitarists Mick Taylor, the nineteen year old replacement for Green, actually remained long enough to appear on two studio LPs (Crusade and Bare Wires) as well as the two LP set of Mayall’s own recordings released as Diary of a Band, Volumes 1 & 2.  While Mayall had employed horns on specific tracks previously, it was on Crusade that they were made official members of the Bluesbreakers.  Crusade is my favorite of the first three albums, each with a guitarist who would go on to much more prominent bands; not because Taylor’s playing was the best but because as a concept of a full album I found it more listenable.  Taylor left in mid-69 to join the Rolling Stones just before the death of their previous lead guitarist, Brian Jones.

Always trying out new ideas, Mayall put together an album, Alone, where he played every instrument (overdubbed, obviously) with the exception of a few tracks requiring Keef Hartley to provide the drumming.  Hartley also appeared on the Crusade and Diary albums and upon his departure quickly formed his own group.  His predecessor was so upset over the way he was axed by Mayall that he titled his group the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, one of the strongest straight Blues sets we will hear when its time comes around.

I believe that goes as far as I wish to go in my writing about Mayall, but there will be a few albums past what was mentioned today that we will be hearing in the months to come and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of relevant things to say about those albums and their players.  The man is still recording and his CDs sell and his guitarists still go on to successful careers on their own, it’s just that his voice has gotten more irritating to me the longer his career goes on.  Beyond doubt, he is the most prolific of all the Brit Blues proponents.

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Water

Understanding / Turn It Over
Beach Bash
All I Need
(I Gotta) Hold on to My Love
She Shot a Hole in My Soul
I’ve Been Hurt By Love
Different Strokes
You Got Me Hummin’
I Can’t Quit Her
I Can’t Let You Go
Bring It to Me Baby
   Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band

Introduction to the Powerhouse Four

Art School Boogie
The Narrow Path
Comments of John Mayall
Classroom Blues
   The Powerhouse Four
Introduction to the Blues Syndicate
The Hucklebuck
Sermonette
No Rolling Blues
   The Blues Syndicate
Slow Train Crawling Up a Hill
Mister James
   John Mayall

Raise Your Hand

Three Time Loser
Use Me
Knock on Wood
Bonie Moronie
Never Like This Before
Who’s Foolin’ Who
Going Back
Listen to My Love Song That Ain’t Got a Rhyme
Dirty, Dirty
   Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band

I Wanna Teach You Everything

When I’m Gone
The Hoot Owl
R&B Medley: Night Train, Lucille
Crocodile Walk
What’s the Matter with You
Runaway
Chicago Line
Blues City Shakedown
My Baby’s Sweeter
   John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers

Introduction

Philly Dog
Land of 1,000 Dances
Respect
Willy Nilly
Get Down with It
Michael
Que Sera Sera
You Don’t Know Like I Know
   Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band