May 28, 2014


Development of the British Blues --- show 8 ---

5-28-2014      

American Folk Blues Festival   1962 to 1964

Curtis Jones    1963

SB Williamson with Animals, Yardbirds   1963

 

It might have come to mind to question how these British lads even came into contact with this music from a far off land that overwhelmingly became the focus of their musical existence.  Official imports to music shops were a rare thing indeed.  Some of the British merchant sailors would bring back momentos from their travels with Jazz, Blues and other records often among the favorites.   Many of the American servicemen who were stationed in Europe brought favorite records from home.  During WWII, there were no current musicians being commercially recorded because of union disagreements and the fact that the shellac used to make records was needed for the industrial uses of the war, but morale boosting recordings called V-disks were issued strictly to the military.  Many of the servicemen were black and their choices were again primarily Jazz and Blues.  Their willingness to share their musical heritage brought joy to many an Englishman’s ear.

 

One of the success stories of the sixties was Willie Dixon.  He was known during his travels abroad to bring enough of his music, probably mainly in the form of sheet music, to disperse to the young local musicians.  We see a dominance of his writings in the Blues boom years along with his recording mates at Chess Records, rockers Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley as well as Blues purists Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, so his outgoing nature and essentially a “learn to read the Blues” campaign just might have been a driving force especially in the Blues boom’s infancy.  And Dixon got to Europe on a regular basis once he set up the American Folk Blues Festival beginning in 1962, another direct influence on the young musicians.

 

By the sixties, Europeans were in the midst of a decades-long love affair with American Jazz and its players and the feeling was mutual as so many of the black entertainers found the unexpected treatment they received by their white admirers so powerful as to make them prolong their stays.  The Blues were also held in high regard as the bedrock of Jazz.  Since the mid-fifties, Bluesmen such as Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee had made appearances on the continent through loose-knit organizations of essentially Jazz aficionados.

 

Among those Jazz enthusiasts was a pair of young Germans, Horst Lippman and Fritz Rau, who set up a company to produce Jazz concerts beginning with the Modern Jazz Quartet tour in 1957.  Lippman also began working with a West German television station and, using the shows he produced and directed to help in the funding of bringing over American artists, the two began to set up the first American Folk Blues Festival set of concert tours.  Through a friend who had visited Chicago, Lippman heard about Willie Dixon and contacted him while Willie was overseas playing with Memphis Slim.

 

When Dixon got home to Chicago he began to work on the idea, assembling a rhythm section including himself on bass, Slim on piano and drummer Armand “Jump“ Jackson as the backbone of the shows.  Lippman already knew T-Bone Walker, who would be the lead guitarist in the group, as well as John Lee Hooker and Terry and McGhee so they were included in this first tour along with “Shakey Jake” Harris and Helen Humes, although the latter two did not make our playlist.  (Unlike other harmonica men who picked up the moniker because of the way they wiggled the harp to achieve their sound, this Shakey acquired it because he likely earned more at dice than he did through his music.  I have also seen him referred to as Magic Sam’s uncle and have no reason to doubt it.)  The shows were set up so the band would back up any vocalists desiring it during their twenty to thirty minute sets as well as taking a little time in the spotlight themselves.

 

Dixon and Lippman actually met face to face for the first time when Willie landed in Germany immediately before the tour began.  The first four days were spent in the studio recording for the television show.  The full tour, set for three weeks, continued with ten days of near-sellout concerts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, then on to Paris and the Scandinavian countries.

 

Instead of the dives they were used to playing in the States, here they were featured in classical music hall venues that held about 2,000 people.  Everything provided was top-notch, from the finest hotels and food to the tour bus they used.  The audiences were tremendously receptive and, in most places, the people on the street treated them with the utmost dignity.  Through his participation in the Festival, Memphis Slim became sufficiently well-known to live comfortably from his playing and so remained in Paris long after the tour up until his death in 1988.

 

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Since T-Bone Walker was pretty much the headliner for the first year’s show, it occurred to me that it would be appropriate to include this short profile I wrote about twenty years ago:

 

“He was the first electric guitar player I heard on record.  He made me so that I knew I just had to go out and get an electric guitar … That was the best sound I ever heard.”  So spoke B.B. King of Aaron Thibeaux Walker, the man who influenced just about every guitarist since with any Blues roots.

 

Born May 28th, 1910 in Linden, Texas, T-Bone (a takeoff of his middle name) grew up listening to the likes of the piano/guitar duo Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell and Jazz/Blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson.  He also recalled many Sundays when the legendary Texas Bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson “player the guitar while my uncle he played the mandolin and my father played the bass” as they drank home brew and corn whiskey.

 

Not surprisingly, T-Bone took up the guitar at age 13, then ukulele, banjo, violin, mandolin and piano.  He began entertaining for pay in the late twenties playing and dancing in travelling medicine shows, some to include early Blues singers Ida Cox or Ma Rainey.  In 1929, under the name “Oak Cliff T-Bone”, he made his first recording, Trinity River Blues / Wichita Falls Blues for the Columbia label as they passed through Dallas looking for new artists for their race recordings.  Unfortunately, sales were insufficient to warrant further recordings and T-Bone strayed further towards a Jazzier style of play.

 

In 1933, the 23 year old Walker met a 17 year old guitarist named Charlie Christian.  T-Bone recalled that they used to play on street corners: “Charlie would play guitar awhile and I’d play bass, and then we’d change and he’d play bass and I’d play guitar.  And then we’d go into our little dance.”  In 1934, when Walker moved to Los Angeles, he passed down his old job in the Lawson-Brooks band to the youngster, sending Christian on his way to becoming a major innovator of the Jazz guitar.

 

Not that Walker was irrelevant to the Jazz scene; he had already achieved success in black orchestras of the Swing era as a guitarist/vocalist. But his real claim to fame began when, as early as 1935, he started to play an electric guitar and was among the first to record with one (in 1939 on T-Bone Blues with sax man Les Hite’s Cotton Club Orchestra).  By this time he was also becoming a showman on stage, having already developed his duck walk (later used by Rock ‘n’ Roller Chuck Berry), playing behind his head and even picking the strings with his teeth, almost commonplace today!

 

T-Bone broke into the Blues big time (“I didn’t start playing the Blues, ever.  That was in me before I was born and I been playing and living the Blues ever since.”) right after World War II.  In 1946 he returned to the west coast after a stint on the Chicago circuit and hooked up with the Black and White label.  During the war years, the shellac needed to make 78s was a prized commodity, but when restrictions were eased, a rerelease of Mean Old World (originally recorded in 1942 and most notably redone by Little Walter Jacobs) and his new 1947 classic Call It Stormy Monday (according to Jimmy Witherspoon: “It’s just like a national anthem.  It tells the truth … people getting paid on Friday, Saturday they go out and have a ball.”) set him in place as a Bluesmaster to be noticed and imitated.  The Charly label has a couple of great CDs of this span.  Another 2CD set well worth checking out is available on EMI covering his 52-cut output on Imperial during the years 1950 to ’54. (Not only are these good listening, but much of the information included here was gleaned from their liner notes.)

 

During the late 40s and into the 50s he had his own 11-piece traveling band, but seven years of one-nighters and an over-enjoyment of alcohol brought about medical problems (he was down to 93 pounds with ulcers that required stomach surgery) forcing the breakup of the band.  After his recovery, he returned to performing in and around L.A. and some of the less strenuous tours, hiring local backup groups when he strayed too far from home.

 

The late 50s brought about a change in the music young blacks were listening to.  Blues gave way to other forms of music: R&B, Doo Wop, Soul …T-Bone recorded for many labels after that, but was not really given the acclaim he was due during the Blues revival of the 60s that brought a newer white audience to the Blues

 

Going into the 70s, his health had regressed to the point that he often preferred to give up the guitar for a seat at the piano.  On March 16th, 1975 T-Bone died of pneumonia in L.A.’s Vernon Convalescent Hospital at age 64, leaving a legacy best realized by the musicians who would follow.

 

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Not unlike many a Bluesman, Curtis Jones was well travelled throughout his career, plying his trade in Texas, Kansas, New Orleans and Chicago, all en route to his finally setting foot in Europe to wind up his life.  Jones was born in Naples, Texas, a small town on the Louisiana border, on August 18th, 1906 to sharecroppers Agnes Logan and Willie Jones, but after working the land for four years since his mother’s passing he went to Dallas to strike out on his own at the age of ten.  It was here that he moved from guitar to piano and organ as his instruments of choice.  To supplement his musical income, Curtis became involved in bootlegging, got caught, spent 47 days in jail and was unceremoniously asked to “shake the dust of Dallas off his feet”, and therefore proceeded to hop the next freight train to Wichita.  Curtis worked his way around Kansas until he got to Kansas City, Missouri, the corrupt town where pleasure was the name of the game.  Rife with speakeasies, gambling and prostitution, the freewheeling town also had need of musicians for the merriment to be complete.  Among many who based themselves there in the 30s were the Count Basie Band, Jay McShann, Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy and a homegrown Blues singer, Big Joe Turner.  According to drummer Jo Jones, "You could hear music twenty-four hours a day in Kansas City".  It seemed there was no need to go anywhere else until 1939, when the city’s mayor Prendergast was convicted of tax evasion and the Kansas City night life was quickly and drastically curtailed.

 

After honing his craft in the city’s brothels, Curtis was on the road again in 1931 to Wyoming and Nevada.  In Cheyenne, he joined the Georgia Strollers minstrel show for nine months as they travelled through Wyoming and the Dakotas, at the rate of one town per evening, until they wound up in Nebraska.  Jones took his leave of the troupe in Fremont and traversed the forty-five miles to Omaha.  He stayed there a few months but was back on the move again with a return to Kansas City followed by a stint in Oklahoma City before hopping another train back to Dallas.

 

Being recognized in Dallas and again sent packing, he worked his way across Texas and into Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  By now able to match the competition in an area renowned for its piano players, Jones settled in with a gig at the Anchorage until he went to check out a high stakes dice game.  Although he was only a bystander, his “stranger in town” status when the police raided the game brought him twenty-five lashes and another get out of town quick suggestion, to which he acquiesced via hoboing a freight train to New Orleans.

 

New Orleans was good to Curtis and so were the gigs, so he settled there with his wife for quite a while until the travel bug once again took over.  He was to be found in Chicago by 1936, where he put together a four piece combo (joined by two horns and a drummer) and gigged on the south side.  His playing caught the ear of Lester Melrose, the biggest of the race recordings producers at the time, who signed him up with Vocalion.  While Jones preferred to play with a combo, his was not in the formulaic style that Melrose preferred so Curtis was recorded solo.  His first release was based on his wife leaving him and the sincerity of his September 1937 Lonesome Bedroom Blues brought good sales and recognition.  Jones’ hit kept him a popular performer and through 1941 he released dozens of 78s on Vocalion, Bluebird and Okeh including his oft-recorded composition Tin Pan Alley, but ill health was among the factors which curtailed his recording career.  His songs were often repetitive musically and not particularly inspiring, but his lyrics were considered novel.  His March 1938 recording of Palace Blues tackled the topic of the abdication by England’s Edward VIII who gave up his throne in order to marry a commoner, much less an American woman.

 

He recorded four tracks for the Parrot label in 1953 and then faded away again until late 1960 when he laid down the album Trouble Blues for Bluesville.  A little over a year later, his 1962 LP Lonesome Bedroom Blues on the Delmark label provided him with much more complementary backing musicians and is considered to be the best representation of his music featuring both new compositions and a fresh look at some of his old favorites.

 

Later in 1962, Curtis left Chicago to forge his way in France and around Europe, working also in Germany, Spain, Poland and Greece, as well as Morocco where he once took up residence.  He would make two LPs for Mike Vernon, In London in 1963 when Mike was a producer at Decca and again in 1968 for the Vernon brother’s Blue Horizon label titled Now Resident in Europe.  It is from In London that our music is taken, mixing solo tracks in among those where he was accompanied by a small British backing band, notably including the legendary Alexis Korner on guitar.

 

Jones signed on for the 1968 American Folk Blues Festival, oddly the only one of the concert series not represented on CD or vinyl, where he proudly promoted his new album.  After the tour, he settled down in Munich where he passed away in 1971.

 

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Representing the 1963 concert series, our basic band gets quite a bit of airtime, opening up with pianist Memphis Slim’s Wish Me Well and Memphis Boogie, bassist Willie Dixon joining him on their story of the legendary John Henry and then singing Crazy for My Baby and ending with Matt Murphy’s instrumental Matt’s Guitar Boogie, all with their drummer Bill Stepney there to hold down the rhythm. 

 

We move away from the Chicago sound momentarily as Big Joe Williams takes the stage with only his booming 12-string’s sound to join him as he sings Big Roll Blues and Baby Please Don’t Go.  Muddy Waters continues the acoustic mood as he opens up his portion with his solo performance of Catfish Blues before being joined on In the City by Stepney, Murphy, Dixon and his longtime piano partner Otis Spann, who takes over the vocal of Going Down Slow.

 

While T-Bone Walker was the most inspirational of the early electric Blues guitarists, his predecessor would have been Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson, who successfully straddled the dual realms of Jazz and Blues and was among the earliest recorded and perhaps the most influential guitarist of the entire pre-electric era, although it would appear that he was more publicized initially as a vocalist.  And, yes, this is the guy we read about in our first segment from whom Lonnie Donegan “borrowed” his first name.  While Robert Johnson’s rough-hewn Blues is held in high regard today, during their lifetime it was Lonnie’s smoother music that reached far and away the most listeners.  It is only fair to add that Robert’s premature death halted his rise that surely would have closer approached many more of his contemporaries.  As a passing point of interest, Lonnie spent maybe as much as two years beginning in 1917 in London (he didn’t get home to New Orleans until 1919) and, again maybe, Europe performing for the U.S. servicemen stationed there.

 

Here, he is heard solo on Careless Love, C.C. Rider and It’s Too Late to Cry, but early on he was accompanied by his brother James (not to be confused with the more well-known pianist James P. Johnson).  As his career progressed he would play in Jazz bands headed by artists the stature of Louis Armstrong (1927) and Duke Ellington (1928).  In the late 20s, he began a successful teaming with fellow guitarist Blind Willie Dunn (real name Eddie Lang), mostly as an instrumental duo but also with King Oliver playing cornet and Hoagy Carmichael providing vocal and percussion on one of their sessions.  When he signed with King Records in 1947 he recorded Tomorrow Night, which was redone by Elvis Presley, and moved for a while to a more modern sound much akin to the Jump Blues style.  Everything I have of his is a pleasure to my ears in one way or another, and that is seldom true for artists from the 20s.  I guess that qualifies him as exceptional.  My favorite collection is his 4CD box set put out by Proper Records, but JSP’s similar issue is likely just as good and more readily available.

 

Pianist Victoria Spivey, one of Blues’ grande dames who had done a couple of vocal duet sessions with Lonnie Johnson in 1928 and 1929, performs with only Dixon and Stepney as she allows them each to step out a bit on T.B. Blues.  The session was closed when all the performers were brought back on stage for the finale, a resounding version of Slim’s Bye Bye Blues.  A few Sonny Boy tunes were taken out of order to start our next set.

 

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Sonny Boy Williamson II was known by several names and gave out several birthdates, ranging from 1894 to 1912.  He died in 1965, but even there an exact date has been disputed.  The son of Millie Ford and Jim Miller, his given name was purportedly Aleck Ford, Aleck Miller, Alex Ford, Willie Miller or Rice Miller, but family members called him Rice.  He seldom spoke of his early years except when he was drunk, which might explain so many varied tales.  There was also much dispute as to who was the true Sonny Boy.  John Lee Williamson had gained national prominence through recordings earlier and had always gone by the Sonny Boy moniker, but in time our Sonny Boy would eclipse his substantial legacy.

 

Around 1927, Sonny Boy II left home for the musicians' wanderings, mostly in the Delta and sometimes accompanied by the Roberts Johnson, Nighthawk or Lockwood or occasionally Elmore James.  By 1930, he was doing a radio broadcast on Illinois' WEBQ as Little Boy Blue, but he gained his biggest following in the early forties when he did the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA in Arkansas.  It was here that he was convinced to pick up the nickname Sonny Boy Williamson to capitalize on the Chicago harpster's growing reputation.  John Lee tried half-heartedly to stop the fraudulent use of his name, but seldom wished to leave Chicago to resolve the situation.  He did, however, join Big Joe Williams on a tune that turned the tables to try and increase their sales in the South when they recorded King Biscuit Stomp.  Sonny Boy II continued to widen his audience by taping half-hour spots pitching "medicines" (mostly alcohol) that would be broadcast later in various regional stations throughout the South.

 

Despite Sonny Boy's claims to have recorded previously, his first known sessions were in 1951 for Trumpet Records, where he remained until 1954.  It was for them in 1952 that Sonny Boy teamed up with Elmore James on the original version of "Dust My Broom".  In need of money, Trumpet sold his contract to Buster Williams, but it was quickly acquired by Chess Records.  He had also been part of sessions in Detroit in 1954 with singer-guitarist Baby Boy Warren, uncommonly featuring an amplified harmonica on the four recordings.

 

"Don't Start Me Talking", from his initial Chess session in 1955, solidified Sonny Boy as a prime artist for the Chicago-based label that already included Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

Now that he was with Chess and under the guidance of A&R man Willie Dixon, the influence of the musicians he was playing with was refining Williamson's sound to a much more urban flavor.  His oftentimes accompanying guitarist Robert Jr. Lockwood had added a jazz influence since he left the Delta and, along with jazz-versed drummer Fred Below, provided some of the most polished blues backgrounds without altering Sonny Boy's own style or efficiency.  While he was with Chess Sonny Boy had Willie Dixon playing bass and in charge of the sessions, but he rarely if ever availed himself of Dixon's writing talents.  He was also able to take advantage of Chess' other cream of the crop musicians, including guitarist Luther Tucker, pianists Otis Spann or Lafayette Leake, drummer Odie Payne, and even had at least one session with Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers sitting in on guitars.

 

Sonny Boy and his wife Mattie settled in Milwaukee, and he often gigged with Robert Jr. around his hometown of Cleveland, but if business was waning there or around Chicago, he had no problem packing up and heading back to the Delta where he would always have a following.  Then came Europe. 

 

To be concluded in a few weeks …

 

 

Key to the Highway

May 28th, 2014

We’re Gonna Rock

   Memphis Slim

I Wanna See My Baby

I’m in Love

   Aaron “T-Bone” Walker

Let’s make It

Shake It Baby

   John Lee Hooker

Stewball

   Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon

I’m Crazy ‘Bout You Baby

   Sonny Terry

I’m Crying at the Station

   Brownie McGhee

Bye Bye Baby

   Ensemble

 

Lonesome Bedroom Blues

Curtis Jones Boogie

Dust My Broom

Skid Row

The Honeydripper

Red River Blues

You Got Good Business

   Curtis Jones

 

Wish Me Well

Memphis Boogie

   Memphis Slim

John Henry

   Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon

Crazy for My Baby

   Willie Dixon

Matt’s Guitar Boogie

   Matt “Guitar” Murphy

Big Roll Blues

Baby, Please Don’t Go

   Big Joe Williams

 

Catfish Blues

In the City

  Muddy Waters

Going Down Slow

  Otis Spann

Careless Love

C.C. Rider

It’s Too Late to Cry

   Lonnie Johnson

T.B. Blues

  Victoria Spivey

Bye Bye Blues

   Ensemble

 

Your Love for Me is True

I’m Getting’ Tired

Sonny Boy’s Harmonica Blues

   Sonny Boy Williamson

Bye Bye Bird

Mr. Downchild

My Little Cabin

Highway 69

   Sonny Boy and the Yardbirds

Night Time is the Right Time

Pontiac Blues

My Babe

Talkin’ ‘Bout You

Bye Bye Sonny Bye Bye

Coda

   Sonny Boy and the Animals

May 14, 2014


Development of the British Blues ---- show 7 ----
5-14-2014
Downliners Sect           1964-1966 
Nashville Teens            1964-1968
Spencer Davis Group   1964-1966

If there was such a thing as a wunderkind, a child prodigy for the British music scene of the sixties, that title would surely be bestowed upon Stevie Winwood who became the lead instrumentalist, lead vocalist and front man for the Spencer Davis Group at the age of fifteen.  Mostly playing keyboards and guitar, Stevie was the driving force behind the group comprised of his older brother Muff on bass, drummer Peter York and the guitar playing Welsh vocalist who gave the band its name.

Spencer Davis, the individual, was almost a full decade older than Stevie, being born on July 17th 1939 in Swansea, South Wales.  While visiting London in the mid-50s Davis, like so many of that generation, came upon the Blues through Skiffle and Rock ‘n’ Roll.  The music of Lonnie Donegan led him to Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy so when he got to Birmingham University in 1960, his shared ambitions were to become a teacher and to play his twelve-string guitar.  He joined a Trad Jazz band and, for a short while, was in a duo with Christine Perfect before getting a solo gig in 1962 playing a mix of Jazz and Blues during intermissions at the Golden Eagle pub.  He was received with enthusiasm so he added his fellow student and drummer Peter York to the sessions.  This was about when he met the Winwoods.

Muff (contracted from his real name Mervyn) and Stevie Winwood grew up in North Birmingham, Muff born June 15th 1943 and Stevie on May 12th 1948, and fell into their appreciation for music well before their teenage years.  Their father was a saxophonist and there would often be more of his musician friends hanging around the home.  Lawrence Winwood encouraged his sons to get involved with instruments at their own pace, which for Stevie meant plunking away at the piano by the age of four.  By the time Stevie was twelve, he encouraged the brothers, now both playing guitar, to inject a Rock ‘n’ Roll medley into his band’s performances of more popular Cliff Richard-styled dance music.

“Later, I got into Jazz when I left school and we started the Muff-Woody Jazz Band with Stevie playing piano.  We played in pubs and had to turn the piano front to the audience so they couldn’t see, because he was so obviously too young.  We played Traditional Jazz, which was popular in the early sixties – Kenny Ball, Acker Bilk.  Then, we picked up on Modernist Jazz, John Coltrane and Roland Kirk.  We went into Jazz record shops and found, all of a sudden, Muddy Waters and (became) turned onto all these Blues players”, as Muff recalls.

They met Spencer while playing at a university gig and the exposure he provided them to his record collection of Folk and Blues music solidified their determination to join forces in an R&B band with Davis and York while Muff switched to bass.  This eventually led to a recurring Monday night spot at the Golden Eagle as the Rhythm and Blues Quartet.  Muff actually came up with the name Spencer Davis Group because it got the others out of the chore of having to do interviews, etc., the type of task Davis actually enjoyed.  However, it was their Jazz background that made them a solid choice to back up Jimmy Witherspoon a few times during his stay in the U.K.

Island Records owner Chris Blackwell became very impressed with the quartet and, while he wasn’t officially their manager, he provided them with advice and got them to sign with Fontana instead of Decca.  They did sign a publishing contract and all their releases bore a notation as “An Island Record Production”.

Their first release, in August 1964, was hampered by poor timing.  It was Dimples, a John Lee Hooker tune that got among the best crowd reaction in their live sets, but suffered from the coincidence of John Lee’s original version hitting the British sales counters almost simultaneously, so kind of an example of too much of a good thing.  Their next two singles were more Soul-based, I Can’t Stand It in October and January’s Every Little Bit Hurts.  Dimples failed to chart while the next two hit 47 and 41 respectively, and those singles along with Midnight Train, the B-side to I Can’t Stand It, were the only representatives from Their First LP (yes, that was the title) to make our playlist.  The fact that the first three singles and their B-sides were included on the LP bucked the trend of most Brit albums of the time, and the fact that there were only twelve as opposed to fourteen tracks seemed to have more in common with American releases.  The #44 Strong Love and its flipside This Hammer released in May, two months before the #6 rated album but recorded too late to be included, made our opening set along with Keep On Running, the U.K. chart topper released in November ’65 and their first vinyl to chart in the U.S. although at a meager #76.  These three songs also found their way onto the next album.

Second Album (again, yes, the imaginative title) climbed to #2 with its January release.  For our second SDG set, Georgia on My Mind, I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water and Watch Your Step were taken from the album.  Kansas City is a live studio recording from early 1967.

The third album, Autumn ’66 released in September and reaching #4, again went against the normal British labels' procedure by including the two A-sides that preceded it, Somebody Help Me (another chart topper from March, giving them back to back #1 singles) and When I Come Home, the August follow-up that hit #12.  

These two songs and their predecessor, Keep on Running, were all penned by Jackie Edwards, an Island Records artist, but Blackwell was convinced the boys had to start writing more of their own material instead of just the B-sides.  To this end, he left them alone in a studio and returned a short time later to find they had left for a round of drinking.  Upset, he began to berate them for giving up but was cut off when they asked him to come back to the studio and see what they had prepared.  As they explained, after a short time of playing around, they hit on a riff they liked and worked it through.  Convinced they had hit the mark, the boys then took the opportunity for a little celebration.  Blackwell concurred and quickly put the tune to tape and rushed it out for publication.

Gimme Some Lovin’ reached the music stores in October of 1966 and went to #2 in the U.K.  For its American version, which became their most successful U.S. charting at #7, percussion was added by some of the future members of Traffic and it was decided to include them again for the January-released I’m a Man.  The Winwood brothers agreed that when the time came they would leave the band together and set a departure date far enough in advance so as to give full promotion to their final single: April 1967.  The song climbed to #9 U.K. and #10 U.S. 

The first U.S. album would not come out until March of 1967, about the same time the Winwoods made their exit from the band.  New Music Express had determined the Davis Group the best new band for 1966, but Stevie was by then in the midst of jam sessions with percussionist Jim Capaldi and guitarist Dave Mason from the band Hellions who would soon join him, along with multi-instrumentalist Chris Wood, in forming Traffic.  “Steve was losing interest.  Because he was so young and never had a real growing up life, he was fed up.  Suddenly, he didn’t want to get up in the morning and play a gig.  He wanted to break out.”  Muff moved on to assist Blackwell in the early development of his Island Records, where he remained for more than a decade in varying capacities, and Steve continued on with Traffic leading into his solo career.  We will see him again when we check out Blind Faith.

Not that chart success is the truest mark of a great band, their popularity with the spending public is hard to ignore since the release of the first of three albums charting at numbers 6, 2 and 4, plus three #1 singles (not to mention the two others at relatively disappointing numbers of 9 and 12), all happening in the year and a half between July 1965 and January 1967.  I’m sure that Davis had established some form of credibility capable of recruiting competent musicians.  That said, even with the original group there was very little commercial success stateside, so it is no surprise his further exploits were hardly heard here.  Drummer Peter York stuck with him until November of 1968 when he and Eddie Hardin (who had replaced Stevie as vocalist and keyboard player) left to form their own duo.

I have been aware of the Spencer Davis Group ever since Keep on Running, but their music seemed difficult to find in the states.  I have a couple of very scratched up albums and a 13 track “best of” CD but was pleased to find there was a 51 track double CD compilation with everything Stevie did with the band with one minor exception.  The band was very popular in Germany.  Fortuitously, Spencer was a teacher of the German language and in their several tours there, the crowd loved it when he would introduce the songs in their native tongue,  Desire for a record in German produced Det War in Schoneburg, a jaunty pre-war folksong Muff compares to Greensleeves in the liner notes.  It strains my curiosity because it is not in this excellent package, but one cannot always get perfection.  The B-side was Stevie’s Groove, one of their three chord organ-led Blues instrumentals which we just didn’t have time for today.
 
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The Downliners Sect was one of the earliest of the British Blues bands and, like a few we’ve already seen, never had the opportunity to make a splash on the American scene.  In fact, the Sect was considered a little too quirky for the British press to feel comfortable with but built up a following that would keep them playing in the clubs and are now kind of a cult classic worldwide or, at least, on two continents.

The band was put together in 1962 by guitarist Don Craine, just one of the members to have changed from their given name.  His birth name was Mick O’Donnell so he was always called Don anyway, Craine being a stream that was near his home.  Even the name of the band changed from its origin as the Downliners in homage to Jerry Lee Lewis’ song Down the Line, penned by Roy Orbison.  Craine’s reason for putting together a band?  “I remember as a kid watching gangster films and you’d see these speakeasies where they’d have all the whores and booze and drugs.  The only people who didn’t get shot were the musicians on the bandstand.”  

After a tour of American military bases in France, the band had made it to the finals of a nationwide talent contest when neither the singer nor the bass player showed up because of girlfriend problems.  Disgusted, Don started totally anew, first by enticing a butcher’s apprentice to give up his job and play drums fulltime and then running an ad for a new singer, guitarist and bass player.  The only one Craine liked was another drummer who was willing to take up the bass.  So by 1963, with Sect now added to the moniker, they had the start of their long-lasting membership with drummer John Sutton, actually a holdover from the earlier band, and bassist \ vocalist Keith Grant (born Keith Evans).  They had also found a lead guitarist for a few months until he went off to college, replacing him with Terry Gibson, previously known as Terry Clemson until he decided to name himself after his guitar.

Like so many bands at the time, they were playing an R&B style based mostly on Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Jimmy Reed as they took on gigs at a rundown hotel on Eel Pie Island and Studio 51 in London’s West End, also known as Ken Colyer’s Jazz Club, while honing their chops.  Their earliest release was an EP that presented their versions of Berry’s Beautiful Delilah, Reed’s Shame Shame Shame, and Bo’s Nursery Rhymes along with Booker T & the MGs’ Green Onions.  Recorded live at the Studio 51 club by Contrast Sound, a label normally specializing in sound effects records, it was released with the title A Night in Great Newport Street.

Ray Sones’ harmonica became the band’s fifth instrument shortly after the EP.  The band soon was working with the independent producer Mike Collier who helped them get a deal with Columbia Records, putting out their first single, a cover of Reed’s Baby What’s Wrong with their own flipside Be a Sect Maniac, in June of 1964.  The Sect actually later got to tour Ireland with Reed.  Don tells of how wonderful Reed felt it was in the U.K., saying how well he was treated and that they pay him twenty pounds per gig.  “’No they don’t, you’re getting 150 pounds’ and his manager came in and said, ‘Well, we’ve gotta go now guys.’  And he had a black manager.”

September saw Sect Appeal, another original, backing the cover of the Coasters’ Little Egypt and the acceptance of their first two singles had the band roaming the English countryside en route to gigs as their popularity grew.  They were also a good draw on continental Europe, particularly in Sweden where their popularity never significantly waned.  They toured there often, playing in much larger venues than elsewhere, their first tour going non-stop for six weeks.  There was even a concert at Stockholm’s Ice Hockey Stadium where the show had to be shut down three songs into the performance as almost 15,000 exuberant fans attempted to join the band on stage.

The next 45 came out in September of 1964 featuring Find Out What’s Happening (with Craine playing rhythm on autoharp) and Insecticide.  Despite a strong record company campaign and Craine’s comment to the Daily Mirror that “We think it’s the best thing we’ve done in the eighteen months we’ve been together”, the disc did not get much of a push on the airwaves.  The band did not always get that same amount of critical support as evidenced when their first LP, released in December and simply titled The Sect, was panned by Melody Maker as sounding like “crude, third rate Rolling Stones”.  New Musical Express found the album acceptable, “(especially) when the five break in between Keith Grant’s monotone singing”.

March 1965 saw the group diverting from the Blues in the studio, while staying true to their R&B sensibilities on stage, with the release of Wreck of the Old ’97 and its B-side Leader of the Sect, the latter also being released on an EP The Sect Sing Sick Songs along with I Want My Baby Back, Midnight Hour and Now She’s Dead.  About the former, NME said it “bounces along jauntily with a sort of railroad rhythm”.  The country trend continued in June with the release of the novelty tune I Got Mine followed shortly by their second LP, The Country Sect.  Bad Storm Coming was taken from the album for their next single backed by Lonely and Blue.  While nothing about the LP, the 45 Bad Storm Coming nor its follow up All Night Worker (a Rufus Thomas cover with the flip side He Was a Square) brought much attention to the band, the ghoulishness and mention of necrophilia on the EP caused an instantaneous ban from the BBC and put our friends back in the limelight.

On a side note, Ray Sones departed after a falling out with Craine sometime before the country LP and was replaced by Pip Harvey.  Until shortly after when the new harmonica player had to go into hiding to ditch the police.  But he did stick around long enough to sing Ballad of the Hounds from the Country Sect LP.  By now, Craine’s trademark had become a deerstalker cap like the one associated with Sherlock Holmes.  Don liked it because when they passed the hat, it could hold much more loot than the ordinary variety.

1966’s LP The Rock Sect’s In took the group, now remaining a quartet, close to the ideals of their first album but The Sect is the definitive recording by the band.  But the band was still willing to try, shall we say, unique subject matter as with the next single, Glendora.  Brought out in June with the B-side I’ll Find Out, it told the tale of a man who fell in love with a mannequin.  Although it was relatively well accepted, the culmination of the band’s past frustrations and a steady decline in the number and quality of gigs brought about a dissolution of the band. Craine and Grant were given a backing track of The Cost of Living to which they added acoustic guitar and vocals.  The two wound up 1966 with the formation of The New Downliner Sect and a single on the Pye label.  While Craine packed up his deerstalker’s cap to pursue other endeavors, including Irish Folk music, Grant toughed it out for another couple of years being kept afloat in large part by their continued popularity in Sweden, where he continued to release New Sect tracks.

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The original Nashville Teens lineup featured two vocalists in Art Sharp and Ray Phillips, pianist John Hawken and bass player Pete Shannon back in 1962.  After about a year, the original guitarist and drummer were replaced by John Allen and Barrie Jenkins respectively.  During their 1963 stay in Hamburg, the band had the opportunity to back up Jerry Lee Lewis on his album Live at the Star Club during their several months in residence at the venue, the club likely best known for the extended stay by the Beatles.  I have read that the band acquitted themselves admirably for the album, but statements that they were toned down in the mix combined with its high price have caused me to forego adding it to my collection.

Upon returning to England, the Teens backed another Rock icon, Bo Diddley, on his UK tour.  The next step was into the studio to record Tobacco Road, the John D. Loudermilk song inspired by Erskine Caldwell’s 1932 novel of the same name, written about rural white poverty in the southern United States.  Theirs was a powerful version that climbed to #6 in its July 1964 UK release and #14 US in October.  My impression was that it did better than that since it was a favorite of just about every garage band in its day and has held up through the test of time, almost half a century later.

The song title became the album title but the quality was not the same, although listening to the CD surpassed my recollection of the scratchy old LP that I bought at a flea market well over four decades ago.  For the follow-up in October, another Loudermilk song from the LP was chosen, Google Eye, which got to #10 at home.  They also performed in two movies, Pop Gear and Gonks Go Beat.  They were also chosen to back Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, but success in the recording industry was just not to fall their way.  Hey, no matter what the album notes say, they were outmatched by many more talented bands.

Not really a lot of information to give you on the band (the liner notes used a lot of space to praise the one song and then a little more informing us about its author), but we were able to put together a fun little set for your listening pleasure.  You were probably tired of reading my prattle anyway, so just enjoy the rest of the show.

Key to the Highway
May 14th, 2014

Dimples
I Can’t Stand It
Midnight Train
Every Little Bit Hurts
Strong Love
This Hammer
Keep on Running
   Spencer Davis Group

Little Egyp
One Ugly Child
Lonely and Blue
Guitar Boogie
Too Much Monkey Business
Sect Angel
Baby What’s on Your Mind
Easy Rider
Bright Lights
Insecticide
   Downliners Sect

Tobacco Road
Mona
Bread and Butter Man
Google Eye
Too Much
Parchment Farm
How Deep is the Ocean
That’s My Woman
La Bamba
TNT
Devil-in-Law
Revived 45 Time
Sun Dog
Find My Way Back Home
   Nashville Teens

Wreck of the Old 97
Rocks in My Pillow
Midnight Special
All Night Work
Hey Hey Hey Hey
Comin’ Home Baby
Why Don’t You Smile Now
Lie to Me
I’m Looking for a Woman
Brand New Cadillac
I’ll Find Out
The Cost of Living
   Downliners Sect

Georgia on my Mind
Kansas City
I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water
Watch Your Step
Somebody Help Me
Nobody Knows You
   When You’re Down and Out
When I Come Home
When a Man Loves a Woman
Dust My Broom
Gimme Some Lovin’
Blues in F
I’m a Man
Goodbye Stevie
Waltz for Lumumba
I Can’t Get Enough of It
   Spencer Davis Group