Collection Essentials #4: Hoodoo Man Blues

Junior Wells

 Wow what a day! I didn’t do much except stare anxiously into the TV screen as American talking heads guided us through the second election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.  The first time he was elected, I cried.  This time, when CNN pronounced him the winner, I simply sighed.  At last! No more threats from loopy Republicans and I could get back to work.

So firstly, congratulations to you Mr. President. And as a small salute from Down Under here is simply the greatest electric Chicago blues album ever recorded: Hoodoo Man Blues.

Buddy Guy and Junior Wells were one of the ‘blues’ most enduring duos. Both veterans of the famous post war Muddy Water’s band, Wells knew just how to blow his harp to get the most out of Guy’s agile guitar licks.  They made many records together throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s as well as countless solo efforts but this record from 1965 (when Barack Obama was only 4 years old many years from his destiny) is the pinnacle.  There is such understanding and empathy in this small group’s playing every song is like a conversation, not a mere melodic riff.  Wells makes his harmonica moan, sometimes like honey melting on a summer’s afternoon and at others shoot staccato shots like sonic bits of lead.  Buddy Guy keeps right up with him, sometimes showing the way but mostly filling in and elaborating on the harp sounds.  The drummer and bass player masterfully provide the rhythm but leave the flash, the strut and the clowning to Junior and Buddy.

Buddy Guy and Junior Wells

Don’t like electric blues?  Listen to this and then let’s talk.

Here is what All Music Guide has to say:

Hoodoo Man Blues is one of the truly classic blues albums of the 1960s, and one of the first to fully document, in the superior acoustics of a recording studio, the smoky ambience of a night at a West Side nightspot. Junior Wells just set up with his usual cohorts -- guitarist Buddy Guy, bassist Jack Myers, and drummer Billy Warren -- and proceeded to blow up a storm, bringing an immediacy to "Snatch It Back and Hold It," "You Don't Love Me, Baby," "Chitlins con Carne," and the rest of the tracks that is absolutely mesmerizing. Widely regarded as one of Wells' finest achievements, it also became Delmark's best-selling release of all time. Producer Bob Koester vividly captures the type of grit that Wells brought to the stage. When Wells and his colleagues dig into "Good Morning, Schoolgirl," "Yonder Wall," or "We're Ready," they sound raw, gutsy, and uninhibited. And while Guy leaves the singing to Wells, he really shines on guitar. Guy, it should be noted, was listed as "Friendly Chap" on Delmark's original LP version of Hoodoo Man Blues; Delmark thought Guy was under contract to Chess, so they gave him a pseudonym. But by the early '70s, Guy's real name was being listed on pressings. This is essential listening for lovers of electric Chicago blues. (AMG)

            Track Listing:

            01 Snatch It Back and Hold It

02 Ships on the Ocean

03 Good Morning Schoolgirl

04 Hound Dog

05 In the Wee Hours

06 Hey Lawdy Mama

07 Hoodoo Man Blues

08 Early in the Morning

09 We're Ready

10 You Don't Love Me Baby

11 Chitlin Con Carne

12 Yonder Wall

13 Hoodoo Man Blues (alternate)

14 Chitlin Con Carne (alternate)

here

Singing the Way I Felt: Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

I was messing around with the harmonica... but I was 13 before I got a real good note out of it.

My grandmother, she say I shouldn't be playing. I should go to church. Finally, I say I'm going do this, I'm going do it. And she got where she didn't bother me about it.

I went to school, but they didn't give you too much schooling because just as soon as you was big enough, you get to working in the fields. I guess I was a big boy for my age.

Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far.

Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi.

In 1943 Muddy Waters left ‘down there’ and moved ‘up’ to Chicago.

I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

Muddy Waters went on to make some the most groundbreaking recordings in American music between the late 1940s and 1960s.  His massive voice and creening slide guitar playing, his natty dressing and his eye for talent (Little Walter, James Cotton, Otis Spann, Buddy Guy all got their breaks in Muddy’s band) made him the progenitor of classic electric blues. 

He was simply a Giant.

Tonight’s post is a 2 disc compilation of rarely heard outtakes and unrecorded tracks from his career with the famous Chess Records of Chicago. With early versions of some of his famous songs, live recordings from on the road and songs simply ignored at the time, these discs cover the entire span of his career as a performer in Chicago.  

There is nothing quite like a Muddy Waters’ led band in full tilt. It was a revolutionary sound.  But these recordings, often without a drummer or in a more stripped down setting are just as powerful. And still as fresh as the day they were recorded.

Spine tinglingly good stuff.

         Track Listing:

         Disc one

1-01 Hard Days

1-02 Muddy Jumps One

1-03 Burying Ground

1-04 You Gonna Need My Help

1-05 Rollin' And Tumblin', Part 2

1-06 Rollin' Stone

1-07 Country Boy

1-08 She's So Pretty

1-09 Oh Yeah

1-10 I Don't Know Why

1-11 I Want To Be Loved

1-12 I Got To Find My Baby

1-13 Crawlin' Kingsnake

1-14 Read Way Back

1-15 Tiger In Your Tank

1-16 Meanest Woman

1-17 I Got My Brand On You

1-18 Lonesome Room Blues

1-19 Messin' With The Man

1-20 Five Long Years

1-21 You Don't Have To Go

1-22 Elevate Me Mama

Listen here

                  Track Listing:

                  Disc Two

2-01 Thirteen Highway

2-02 Early In The Morning Blues

2-03 One More Mile

2-04 Come Back Baby (Let's Talk It Over)

2-05 My Dog Can't Bark

2-06 Roll Me Over Baby

2-07 Trouble In Mind

2-08 Trouble, Trouble

2-09 My Pencil Won't Write No More

2-10 Cold Up North

2-11 Streamline Woman

2-12 Rock Me

2-13 Standing Around Crying

2-14 Hoochie Coochie Man

2-15 Baby, Please Don't Go

2-16 You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had

2-17 I Feel Like Going Home

2-18 Where's My Woman Been

2-19 Rollin' And Tumblin'

Listen here.