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| 'Champion' Jack Dupree
In what seems another historical epoch, I once found myself
living in a heavily guarded compound in a rugged town on the Afghanistan border,
Miranshah. For astute and tuned-in readers that name will ring bells as the
location of frequent drone attacks by the US and military campaigns by
Pakistan. Apparently senior al-Qaida operatives liked Miranshah as a base as it
was cheek and jowl with the rust-coloured rocky mountains of Afghanistan. Easy
escape and easy access, depending on the circumstances.
I was in Miranshah to assist refugees who, since the
departure of the Soviets (remember them?), from Afghanistan, were cautiously
returning home. Our team’s job was to
recover each refugee’s ration and registration card (which entitled him to
international assistance) and replace it with a couple of shovels, a 300 kg bag
of wheat and the equivalent of $100.
I’ll not comment on the effectiveness of the program, as it has nothing
to do with tonight’s post.
This operation required us to be at work for about 3 hours
each day. The rest of the day we would pass in Scrabble, cricket, reading and
smoking hash. I read lots of books,
including the biography of Hafez al
Assad, whom I must rather sheepishly admit, after finishing the book, I
truly admired. I’m sure the hashish must
have clouded my judgment.
I also listened to a C-90 tape of blues every day. On one
side was Memphis Slim. On the other
was an old recording by ‘Champion’ Jack
Dupree. As that month of afternoon’s
passed slowly (and dreamily) I simply absorbed this tape, especially Dupree’s songs. In a way I had never before, I understood the
essential truth of the blues. Jack’s music was the definition of
candour. Not only did he sing of every part of his life (troublesome neighbors,
lynch-hungry racists, dreams of freedom and ugly women he’d bedded) he did so
with an utterly transparent vulnerability.
Though he got his name from a sometime career as a pugilist, it was not
the brawn, spit and blood that shone through his songs, but a bewildered
acceptance of the way things are. Even with
lyrics as chilling as these from My Black
and White Dog
He said,
Well, well, hope there's a rope, you know.
Where's me
is a tree, you understand what he was talkin' about, don't you?
Yeah.
You
understand what he mean, you know?
I said
ain't no use to worry
'Cos you
will never, never get me
Jack never sang with hate. Rather life in all it’s horror
and glory was a thing to be treasured, cherished and enjoyed.
Dupree’s blues arise
from horrific circumstances: orphaned in New Orleans as a young boy, a junkie
in adult life, unrelenting racism in his homeland that led him to spend most of
his later years in Europe. Each of these trials is sung about, often in
explicit detail but always with an unexpected but very genuine sense of
humour. The blues according to Jack
Dupree are about denying the bastards the last laugh. And drinking, gambling,
loving and dancing.
His piano playing is hypnotic if uncomplicated. Be it
lightning paced boogie woogie or slow and mournful repetition of a few bars, he
is a true Champion of the keyboard.
So without further ado here are the Blues According to
Champion Jack Dupree.
Be healed!
Track
Listing:
01 Can't
Kick the Habit
02 Nasty Boogie
03 Forever and Ever
04 When Things Go Wrong
05 Junker's Blues (Feat. King
Curtis)
06 How Long Blues
07 Hometown New Orleans
08 Freedom
09 Rolling And Tumbling
10 Down In Clarksdale
11 In Prison Too Long
12 When I'm Drinking
13 Drinking And Gambling
14 Morning Tea - 1941
15 Sneaky Pete (Feat. King
Curtis)
16 Angola Blues - 1940
17 The Snow Is On The Ground
18 My Home In Mississippi
19 One Scotch, One Bourbon, One
Beer
20 Reminiscin' with Champion Jack
21 Calcutta Blues
22 Poor Boy
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Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Blues According to: Champion Jack Dupree
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Queen of the Backups: Clydie King
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| Clydie King
Who hasn’t wanted to be a back up singer? My first consciousness of this particular
species of humanity was when I saw Gladys
Knight and the Pips perform Midnight
Train to Georgia on Soul Train in the early 1970s. I suspected that I
should not be deriving such pure pleasure from seeing three men in immaculate
suits moving in honeyed unison as if they were performing some seriously important
task akin to healing or miracle working.
I wanted to be a Pip, if only
to possess a license to pull an imaginary train whistle and wear really loud
clothes.
Clydie King is
one of those amazing singers who seems to have backed up everyone from the Rolling Stones (Exile on Main Street), Steely
Dan (Can’t Buy a Thrill), Lynyrd Skynrd (Sweet Home Alabama), Ray
Charles (many many songs) and of course Bob Dylan (most of his Born-Again era work). Indeed, Clydie
did more than simply back Bob up in
the studio. She, for a while, was his wife, or at least ‘main squeeze’ and is
said to have born the great man two children.
Some even claimed she was instrumental is ‘leading him to the Lord’.
They say every back up singer’s dream to be the
headliner. And Clydie King was no different. She issued several records under her
own name and tonight, we present her debut album, Direct Me. Certainly not
as nasty as Betty Davis, but neither as cotton candy as Diana Ross, Clydie’s
voice brings back a rush of memories of 70’s American soul. Upbeat or slow, she’s got some chops and you
can see why she was in such demand by all those white boy rockers!
Track
Listing:
01 Direct Me
02 Ain't My Stuff Good Enough
03 First Time, Last Time
04 Never Like This Before
05 I Can't Go On Without Love
06 'Bout Love
07 Long Road Ahead
08 B Minor
09 You Need Love Like I Do, Don't You
10 The Long And Winding Road
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Collection Essentials #4: Hoodoo Man Blues
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| Junior Wells |
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.
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| 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)
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
There is No Hope for White America: The Watts Prophets
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| The Watts Prophets
When Watts was burning
and roiling with rage back in the 60s a group of street poets got together to
rap. Their subjects were drugs, sex, police oppression, violence, blood, racism
and every other form of urban shit ever invented.
This is one of the
albums of the Watts Prophets, a
group that shares the sobriquet, inventors of rap music, with Gil Scott Heron and the Last Poets.
As the great American
election circus glows white hot in the final dash to the first Tuesday of
November, this collection of songs by local street politicians and
philosophers, is a timely reminder of how much things have or have not changed.
Essential listening.
Repeat.
 
Track Listing:
01
Listen
02 Part – E.S
03 Black Pussy
04 Kill
05 Funny How Things Can
Change
06 Falstaff
07 Pimping, Leaning and
Feaning
08 Keep You Doing
Things
09 The Meek Ain't Gonna
10 The Days, the Hours
11 Taste.
12 We Must Love Black
People
13 I'll Stop Calling
You Nigger
14 Saint America
15 They Shot Him
16 Nearer My God To
Thee
17 Clowns All Round
18 Response to a Bourgeois
Nigger
19 Things Going to Get
Greater Later
20 Trees and Del
Prodo's
21 Pledge of Allegiance
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