Development of the British Blues and Rhythm

  --- show 29 ---   5-27-2015
Duster Bennett                 1968
Ten Years After               1968

Just some quick, somewhat unorganized notes about today’s show:

We start off today’s show with a recording of a June 28^th concert at the Fillmore West by Ten Years After which was provided by one of my listeners and likely unavailable almost anywhere else.  TYA’s first two albums were released in 1968 so this has to be from their first American tour.  We’ll be using Help Me and Spoonful which had appeared in studio form on their 1968 debut LP (simply titled Ten Years After) and on a later set Crossroads, which was recorded during those same sessions but did not appear until Deram released an album of outtakes in 1972.

Sandwiched in between the first two songs is a version of Rock Me Baby, but the vocal is too low in the mix to know how faithfully they followed the original B.B. King version.  If I had the option to not include it in the set I might have gone for that, but the disc I got this from was not divided by title, just one long track of the original concert.  Another fault of the recording is that the bass is too low and only shows up on the three solos Leo Lyons takes, two of which we will hear.  Essentially the guitar is overly dominant but the excesses of Alvin Lee were pretty much what audiences paid to hear, myself included.  I had the pleasure of seeing them twice before the release of their performance at Woodstock, but likely not on this first tour.

The fourth and final song of our opening set is I May Be Wrong, but I Won’t Be Wrong Always, a Count Basie tune (I did not know that until Alvin announced it at the start of the number) which comes from their second release Undead, recorded live at Klook’s Kleek.  Like the Woody Herman tune (Alvin tells us that on the LP) Woodchopper’s Ball,

I opted for the superior musicianship and recording quality of the Undead album.  From that same CD, I’ve chosen Summertime / Shantung Cabbage over the Fillmore version and the Undead original version of I’m Going Home, the tune that kinda made the band famous when they performed it at Woodstock, after which the band went downhill into a pop-rock mode.  So that’s today’s opening and closing sets, but we also have a twenty minute set from their debut studio LP release right in the middle of the show.

I believe there was a lot of criticism of Alvin Lee as just a sped up imitation of Eric Clapton but that was okay by me.  In addition to the outtake Crossroads (which Clapton had done in the studio with the Powerhouse and live with Cream), there were two more songs previously recorded by Eric that appeared on the first lp -- I Want to Know (Powerhouse) and Spoonful (Cream).

I want to thank Mike for providing the Fillmore session and Bobby G for editing it down for me.

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I never really knew anything about Duster Bennett aside from the fact that that he was a harmonica playing buddy of Peter Green and that he was often referred to as a tortured soul who authored one of Peter’s favorite songs, Jumping at Shadows.  I often wanted to look into his sound but always had other priorities for my purchases, until I found this comprehensive 2CD set of his Blue Horizon recordings.  I must admit I had been missing out on an interesting part of the late 60s British Blues scene.

Bennett was the only English one man band that I am aware of.  To back up his vocals, Duster would pick his guitar with a harmonica rack resting on his chest while he kept rhythm with a bass drum and hi-hat, but he also played Blues harp in the familiar handheld style when he performed in band situations.

With four exceptions, our first set has Bennett’s one man setup.  On the songs Times Like These, Shady Little Baby and the Magic Sam tune My Love is Your Love, Duster’s guitar and harmonica essentially front Fleetwood Mac – Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.  For Slim Harpo’s Raining in My Heart he is joined by a couple of Blue Horizon label mates from Chicken Shack, drummer Dave Bidwell and Andy Silvester providing more vocal.

Likewise, the second Bennett set is made up of his one man act except Talk to Me and Bright Lights, Big City, which add the Yardbirds pre-Clapton guitarist Top Topham and vocalist Stella Sutton.  The credits also list both Peter Green and Tony Mills on bass guitar.

Duster fell asleep as he was driving home from a gig and died in the ensuing accident.

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I May Be Wrong but I Won’t Be Wrong Always
Help Me
Rock Me Baby
Spoonful
   Ten Years After

Hard to Resist

It’s a Man Down There
Trying to Paint it in the Sky
Worried Mind
Jumping at Shadows
Forty Minutes from Town
Times Like These
Got a Tongue in Your Head!
My Love Is Your Love
Raining in My Heart
Shady Little Baby
Jumping for Joy
   Duster Bennett

I Want to Know

Adventures of a Young Organ
Love Until I Die
Feel it for Me
Don’t Want You Woman
I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes
Losing the Dogs
   Ten Years After

God Save the Queen / She Lived Her Life

      Too Fast
Just Like a Fish
What a Dream
Just Like I Treat You
Talk to Me
My Babe / She’s My Baby
Honest I Do
Bright Lights, Big City
Fresh Country Jam
   Duster Bennett

Crossroads

Woodchopper’s Ball
Summertime / Shantung Cabbage
I’m Going Home
   Ten Years After