washerman's dog: Mose Allison

Showing posts with label Mose Allison. Show all posts

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Music for Mint Juleps: Mose Allison (link restored)

Witch Horse Mint Julep

Mose Allison was born in the smallest of towns in the southern state of Mississippi over 80 years ago. It was a part of the United States that in summer sweltered in a humid heat and where mint juleps helped keep the races calm and the hours bearable.

This past week or more we’ve been enjoying (?) a long period of high temperatures. The nights are sticky and in the day the sun gnaws at your shoulders and arms. Sort of like the Mississippi of my mind.

Since we haven’t heard the fantabulous Mose in many a month I thought this torpid weather would be an apropos time to reintroduce him into the Washerman’s Dog world.

Mose Allison Plays for Lovers is a cheerily titled and somewhat hard to locate album recorded in 1958-9 but released in the mid 1960s. Here is unadulterated Mr Allison at the keyboard. No singing. No wry commentary. Just the wizard tickling the ivories and making them sing. Indeed, it is exactly the sort of music one can imagine playing on the hifi as the amorous duo down a final mint julep before heading into the bedroom.

By the by, here is a mint julep recipe

4 fresh mint sprigs

2 1/2 oz bourbon whiskey

1 tsp powdered sugar

2 tsp water

Muddle mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a collins glass. Fill the glass with shaved or crushed ice and add bourbon. Top with more ice and garnish with a mint sprig. Serve with a straw.

Track Listing:

01 I Thought About You

02 Somebody Else Is Taking My Place

03 How Long Has This Been Going On

04 My Kind Of Love

05 I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out

06 You Belong to Me

07 The Kissin' Bug

08 If I Didn't Care

09 It's Crazy

10 Strange

here

Friday, November 11, 2011

Happy Birthday to You! Mose Allison

Mose John Allison

I have no idea what I'm doin'. I've never seen me.

Mose Allison

Today Mose John Allison, the coolest middle class white boy whoever tickled the ivories is 84 years old. And lest you think he’s sitting with a blanket on his knees staring at the garden, he just played the San Francisco Jazz Festival barely 10 days ago.

His voice may be a bit shakey but his wit is as sharp as a pimp's shoes and his fingers as fluid, tripsy and quick as the day he started.

To honor the man the Washerman’s Dog hit factory put together a collection of 25 Mose Allison all-time great songs. We sent off an email asking him what he wanted for his birthday and he sent us this response.

I don't want much in this world

It's the simple things I treasure

'Till I die I would get by on fame, riches and sensual pleasure

I don't ask much in this life

No special consideration

Just treat me like His Majesty

Of a friendly OPEC nation

Some people

Just don't know when to stop

Some people

Just won't quit until they reach the top

But I'm so easy going

I'd make my way through life

On love and understanding

From a rich and beautiful wife

Some people

Just never seem to get enough

Some people

Want salvation, paradise and all that stuff

But I'm so easy going

Don't even keep the score

All I want is plenty, but I will take more

If you ask me

I will take more

Say please

And I will

Take more

Happy Birthday Mose!

Track Listing:

01 Foolkiller

02 If You Only Knew (Live)

03 I'm Not Talking (Live)

04 Dinner On the Ground

05 Gettin' There

06 I Know You Didn't Mean It

07 Stroll

08 My Kind of Love

09 Feel So Good

10 Mojo Woman

11 Middle Class White Boy (Live)

12 I'm Alright

13 Your Molecular Structure

14 I Hadn't Anyone Till You

15 Devil In The Cane Field

16 I've Got A Right To Cry

17 Prelude to a Kiss

18 You Call it Joggin'

19 Trouble In Mind

20 I Don't Want Much

21 Ever Since The World Ended (Live)

22 Do Nothin' 'til You Hear From Me

23 The More You Get

24 Top Forty

25 Parchman Farm

Listen here.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Black White and Blue: Mose Allison

Mose John Allison Jr.

Followers of the Washerman’s Dog and others know that Mose Allison holds a special place in the universe. My 8 year old was named after him (that decision made several years before he was born) and over the years I’ve given countless friends, ‘introductory’ CDs of the blackest white blues singer alive.

Born before electricity came to his home town of Tippo, Mississippi, deep in the cotton belt of the southern USA, Mose grew up listening to the radio and that pre-historic version of the iPod, a jukebox. He heard jazz on the latter and blues and Louis Jordan on the former. After several lessons on the piano that began when he was five years old, he dumped the teacher in preference to picking out his own tunes. Amazingly, for the time, his parents supported his musical inclination and in the early 1950s he found himself in New York City. ''When I first came to New York jazz clubs, I was somewhat of a freak singing blues,'' he told an interviewer. ''No one had heard of Muddy Waters. They questioned, was I valid, authentic? Some people still think I'm black. I take it as a compliment.''

On another occasion Mose said, ''There are two kinds of musicians, those who go directly to the audience and become popular, and those who go indirectly from other musicians. I have been able to survive because of other musicians.'' Indeed, though Mose has been playing for 7 decades (!) and has always been loved by the critics and written his fair share of classics (Parchman Farm, Young Man Blues) whatever ‘popularity’ he has gained has come from admiring peers.

"When I discovered Mose Allison I felt I had discovered the missing link between jazz and blues" Ray Davies

"The man’s voice was heaven. So cool, so decisively hip... Mose was my man. I felt him to be the epitome of restrained screaming power." Pete Townshend

Tonight’s selection is a fantastic album. Not one of the early classics of his early career but the sardonic reflections of a man facing the winter of his years. Slightly bemused by the pace of technology but giving way with a sort of resignation to the march of time. But also not without a portion of the obstreperousness of the senior citizen who is fed up. You get that on the opening track, MJA Jr.

(Mose John Allison Jr/ That’s the only name I’ve ever had/ Don’t call me Moses/ Don’t call me Mo/ Just gonna make my momma mad/ Mose John Allison Jr/ That’s the way its written in the book/Don’t call me Malt/ Don’t call me Moose/ Its not some made up showbiz hook)

The support Mose gets from Russell Malone on guitar and Mark Shim on sax is accomplished, polished and uplifting, making space and setting the pace for Mose’s sly vocalizing and piano playing. A great Friday night treat!