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By Cousin Justin

Along with being a music fan I am a movie junkie.  I rarely go to theaters but on Dec. 5th I will be going to see Cadillac Records.  When I first saw the preview for this movie it gave me chills.  When I saw Howlin’ and Muddy were going to be depicted on film I thought I died and went to heaven.  

By Max Conroy

Four years ago, I had the chance to see Bo Diddley play a concert at Fitzgeralds, a small bar on the outskirts of Chicago where they filmed some of the Color of Money, for his 75th birthday.  All I had to do was hop in my car or catch a train and go, but I got lazy and probably spent the night doing something very unmemorable.  Living in a thriving metropolis like Chicago numbs one to culture because you can do something great every night, all year round.  You have to pick and choose and I chose poorly here.  I was definitely into Bo Diddley at the time, and I think must have got a lot more heavily into his records shortly thereafter.  I didn’t read any reviews of the show and have no idea if he was good or not, but that would have been beside the point…it’s fucking Bo Diddley, man.  This ranks up there at the very top of my rock and roll regrets list, along with missing out on seeing Johnny Cash, pre-revival, in Kalamazoo and hearing about the last Pavement show in Michigan days after it had happened. I knew that I would never have another chance to see him live.

Bo Diddley died in Florida today of heart failure.  He’d had a stroke, followed by a heart attack a year ago and had been in poor health since.  He was 79 years old and one of the people that created rock and roll. 

When I realized, after years of seeing the name E. McDaniel listed as the writer of songs that were such blues and rock and roll standards that I thought that they must have been traditional arrangements and the name a ruse like Allan Smithee in the film industry, that it was in fact Bo Diddley, I gave him some serious listening attention.  A lot of people dismiss Bo Diddley as a one-trick-pony, and those people are missing out in a big way.  Sure, he did ride the wave of rhythm that he created on the track Bo Diddley for a long time, but the power and influence of that rhythm cannot be overstated.  EVERY garage band has used it, from Buddy Holly on.  But there was so much more to his sound than that rhythm.  He wrote some fantastic straight blues numbers and countless chugging rockers; take a handful of your favorite rock and roll records recorded in the 60s, flip them over and see how many times you see the name McDaniel.

Bo Diddley, sadly, doesn’t get the respect he deserves, but I’m confident that his importance to rock and roll will be realized as long as people continue to look back and question what is rock and roll and where it came from.  Here are four examples that made me a huge fan of his.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to his music without thinking about that show at Fitzgeralds…

Bo’s Bounce:

Keep Your Big Mouth Shut:

I Can Tell:

Road Runner, from Beach Party: one of the best live records of the early 60s:

by Max Conroy: 

The other day I woke up with Major Lance’s Hey Little Girl in my head.  It was the best morning I’d had in a while as a result.  The comforting, safe yet punchy rhythm of the song is perfect for laying there without your wits, looking for motivation to get up.  It’s almost as good as a cup of coffee or at the very least an excellent background for the coffee.

I picked up Um, Um, Um, Um, Um (that’s right five Um’s) the Best of Major Lance in a great record shop in Long Beach, California called Bagatelle Records recently.  I’d heard the name Major Lance before but had no idea what he sounded like.  The cover looked cool, heavy boards and wax, and it was on Okeh records, which I found to be odd.  Okeh always seemed like a label synonymous with the 40s and 50s to me, so a mid 60s soul guy on Okeh was worth a shot.  The back of the record also proclaims under the title ‘The Great Songs of Curtis Mayfield’, and I’m on a huge Curtis kick right now.  This kind of made me suspicious because I didn’t want some hack covering a bunch of Impressions songs and it was $12.  I went to the listening station, which had a Grado cartridge, and threw it on.  It was one of those records where you just had to hear about a second to know that it was worth the money.

It turns out that Major Lance grew up with Mayfield and Jerry Butler; and Mayfield got him a shot with Okeh in 1962.  Pretty much all of his hits were written by Curtis and feature him on guitar and the Impressions on backing vocals.  Lance’s songs seem to typify the Chicago soul sound of the early to mid 60s: smooth Latin flavor, horns and great harmonies.  The Monkey Time and Um, Um, Um, Um, Um were his biggest hits.  His popularity waned towards the end of the decade and he signed with Curtom in 1969, leaving in ‘71 to cash in on the Northern Soul craze in England.  He moved back to the states in the mid 70s, was convicted of selling cocaine, and did four years.  He died at 55 of heart failure in 1994. 

One of my girlfriend’s friends and her four year-old daughter came to visit us the other weekend.  I pulled a record out of its jacket in front of the four year-old and she asked me, What’s that?  A record.  See it’s got these grooves on it that play music…don’t touch it!  I put on Major Lance and she was getting down, I tell you what.  I even danced.  Every morning I hope to wake up with any Major Lance song in my head, but he hasn’t been back.  I’m glad I bought that record.

Hey Little Girl

Um Um

Does it get any better than Magic Sam?  Would Magic Sam have been more widely known and followed had he not died in his prime at age 32, and been able to capitalize on the European blues tours that followed?  Here is west-side Chicago soul blues at it’s finest.

listen: Just Give Me Your Love, from the LP pictured above.

Great history of Magic Sam from Cascade Blues Association, also mentioning 1969′S Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival:

August 1969 may bring to mind the grandeur of the Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in upstate New York whenever you ask somebody with basic music knowledge to name an event of that year. It’s pretty hard to ignore an event of such magnitude which featured so many prolific artists of the day. But, in the Blues world, August 1969 also marked an extraordinary festival of its own, two weeks earlier in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival was a conglomeration of the greatest Blues musicians, past, present and future. The line-up was phenomenal: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Boy Crudup, Otis Rush, B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Freddy King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton, Jimmy Dawkins, Clifton Chenier, Big Joe Williams, Roosevelt Sykes, Luther Allison and Big Mama Thornton. But, the one musician who stood tallest over the weekend may have been the least known, at least outside of Chicago.

    Magic Sam was scheduled to take the stage at 3:00 p.m., Sunday afternoon. But, when his time came, he was nowhere to be found. Charlie Musselwhite, who was originally set to follow, took to the stage in his place. By the time Musselwhite finished, Sam had arrived, but with only his bassist Buffalo Bruce Barlow. Missing a drummer, he was fortunate to recruit Sam Lay to fill the void. As the three stepped to the stage, the crowd of 10,000 fans were leery of what to expect from this individual who should have been on an hour earlier. But, by the time he had finished the opening number, Freddy King’s classic instrumental, “San-Ho-Zay”, the word was out and the festival grounds were abuzz with the name of Magic Sam.

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I’ve been back on a blues kick lately, listening to nothing else but the blues on the old turntable.  Nothing else can do it for me right now like the blues can.  I’ve been digging through my blues row, which makes up the biggest part of my collection.  The first blues record I ever bought was Lighting Hopkins, Sings The Blues, on the Score label.  Oh, what a record.  From there my blues record collecting exploded - and it’s turned into a nice collection now.  The blues are the roots of all American music - and there’s nothing else I can do to explain it.  It either tugs at your soul or it doesn’t.  You either feel it or you don’t.  And if you feel it, there’s nothing quite like it when compared to another musical genre.  I admit, I’m not always in the mood for the blues, but when I am, I think I enjoy it more than anything else. 

Cousin Justin agrees.  The blues are the one genre where we both meet with our musical tastes.  We also meet with 50s and 60s rhythm and blues and soul but then we split where I go more with jazz, 70s funk, reggae, bluegrass and roots music and Justin gets heavy into rock - 60s garage and all kinds of sub-genres (and cruise-ship calypso records).  But the blues, the blues are where it’s at with both of us.  It’s where we got our start in our love for record collecting.

We were talking today about things in general up at the office and Justin asked what I’ve been listening to.  I said I’ve been back in the blues stacks, and I just couldn’t seem to stop listening or get past Luther Allison’s Love Me Mama on Delmark.  Justin replied without hesitation, “Yeah, to me that’s the best blues record ever.”  I think I agree (modern anyways - it was put out in 1969)- you just have to listen to it to appreciate it - it expodes with the west-side Chicago soul sound but remains nitty and gritty, down and dirty.  Luther’s high pitched voice wails and his guitar wails along too.  It’s rockin’ yet laid back - the perfect mix of the blues.  It bridges the gap between old style delta stylings and modern Chicago electric - and incoroparates the Motown influenced soul style of singing that Chicago’s West Side was known for - along with such greats as Magic Sam, Otis Rush, Fenton Robinson, Son Seals and others. 

Although Magic Sam’s West Side Soul album is right up there and perhaps as good, nobody captured it quite like Luther did on this album, his debut and only recording on the Delmark label.  Delmark was THE label in the late 60s and early to mid 70s for blues, particularly for Chicago artists, who were producing the most innovative and immortal music the genre may have ever seen.  Heavily influenced by early electric Chicago pioneers such as Muddy Waters and Little Walter and others who came from the south to Chicago to make money recording and playing in blues bars, (and who were themselves influenced by the delta country greats and especially by T-Bone Walker, who revelotionized the modern electric guitar blues style), the new guys took it to the next level.  Following this period, to me the blues died a bit.  There were labels like Ann Arbor’s own Blind Pig (Ann Arbor has always loved Chicago blues - all the early Ann Arbor blues festivals showcased the best Chicago blues guys) who signed some of these Chicago guys in the late 70s and early 80s to record some albums that were really good, but it wasn’t quite the same.

I’m sure there were blues records that were much more influencial, and plenty more rare and historically important, but to us Cousins, it doesn’t get much better than this.  If you can find a copy - pick it up.  If you’re new to the blues, start here and see where it leads you. 

Magic Sam, pictured here in his West Side Soul LP on Delmark, is the best example of Chicago’s west side soul-blues sound.  Drawing from Detroit’s soul sound, and combined with Chicago’s rich history of modern electric blues, Magic Sam wails away with a melodic soul twist.  The West Side was known for this style, and Magic Sam was one of the creators, along with Freddie King, Otis Rush, Magic Slim, Buddy Guy, Luther Allison, Fenton Robinson, and others.  Sam died tragically at age 32 of a heart attack, right in his prime.  Had he continued, he may have emerged into one of the more well known modern blues artists, being able to capialize on the blues revival festivals and European tours that followed in the decades after his death.

Here is a great sample of his style, the track , from the LP shown above.

Sonny Cox was once a wailing saxophone player in Chicago in the 60s, recording this album on the Cadet label.  He then apparently got into coaching high school basketball after his career was over, leading Chicago’s Martin Luther King high school to three state championships.  He was recently honored was one of Illinois’s 100 Legends of the IHSA basketball tournament.

From Peoria’s PJ Star:

After a few minutes of relatively innocuous chat, former Chicago King coach Landon “Sonny” Cox warmed up when talk turned to ingredients necessary for a state champion - three of which he won (1986, ‘90 and ‘93). “I’ve always said you can’t win a state championship with midgets,” Cox said after being honored as one of the 100 Legends. “You’ve got to have athletes, too. You can’t win the Kentucky Derby with a donkey.” … Speaking of Cox, Sonny once paid bills by making sweet sounds through a saxophone. His biggest album was the 1966 release “The Wailer,’’ which fetches $12.99 even today at Cousins Vinyl in Detroit.

Sonny, pictured in upper left row with the 1986 AA Illinois state chamionship team.

Kind of a cool thing for an ex-saxophone player to do after his career is over.  I bet he would be fun to hang out with and listen to stories.  And I thought it was neat that we were mentioned in the Peoria PJ Star newspaper.  We’ve got a promo copy for sale as mentioned by the article, actually for just $12.00.

Yesterday, Justin and I went over to the house of the founder and editor in chief of Big City Rhythm & Blues magazine, Robert Jr. Whitall.  www.bigcitybluesmag.com 

We had a fantastic visit with him - he showed us his music collection, his original music posters, photographs, zydeco folk art and more.  Robert Jr. also told us about the good old days of Detroit - Ann Arbor rock n roll; he was another person we’ve come across who was a former John Sinclair disciple.  He said, “Back then, the MC5 and all those guys, we were all listening to the blues!  People don’t realize that punk music came from the blues.” 

His magazine is an absolute must check-out.  Puts the spotlight not only on all the old time blues guys, with interviews and stories, but also on a lot of the current, lesser known blues talents of today.  Filled with awesome photographs, even the ads are enjoyable to look at.  Being huge blues fans, Justin and I may be biased, but even my wife thought the magazine was cool. 

Only $30 for a year’s subscription - I already know what my dad’s getting for Christmas this year.

-Cousin Geoff

The elusive Max Conroy, Cousin Justin’s former roommate at MSU, has emerged from hiding somewhere in Chicago to contribute to the site.  Check his comments and reviews on the Heart Ache blog.  As the story goes, Max was a hobo in a past life.  He hopped trains and ate beans from a can by the campfire, and liked to settled down to watch the sunset with a bottle of cheap wine in his hand.  He once stabbed a man over the love of his life.  In his current life, he loves music and books and is a true Cousin in spirit.  We are trying to get Max to be a regular writer/contributer to the site.  We miss Max, and wish he would come back home to visit. 

I remember the time where I went to East Lansing to visit Justin and Max and we jammed in the basement.  We all sucked, but boy did we play our hearts out.  Max was on guitar, me and Justin were on drums and harmonica, and the rest of the people hanging out did whatever.  We played all night and God knows how we sounded at the peak of it all.  I swear we figured out the secrets of the universe that night.

I’m listening to the Grateful Dead’s self titled live album right now.  Me and Justin have been diggin’ the Dead recently.  Dispite the current hipster attitude towards hatin’ on hippies, I don’t see how you can hate on the Grateful Dead.  They were good for a reason.  Quit trying to deny the facts of the world.  The Grateful Dead are immortal.  And hippies shouldn’t be hated on.  That’s just jealously.   

Now excuse me while I go fix up a veggie burrito.

-Cousin Geoff

jsREVIEW:

This is the album that Alligator Records was created to release— a smoking, gritty slide-guitar blues album that pretty much defines what electric blues is all about.

And what else is there to say? Taylor’s guitar has a squall to it that would sink ships, and the duo backing him (Brewer Phillips and Ted Harvey) are sharp and capable. They’re essentially playing Electric Delta blues, a rawer and more minimal style than the Electric Chicago blues played by B.B. King and T-Bone Walker. In that way, this album can be seen as a direct bit of music ethnography, tracing the rhythms and sound of the Dirty South as brought to the post-war North, a kissing cousin to Memphis and strangely removed from the Texas and even other Chicago blues of the time.

This is my favorite kind of blues, raw and rhythmic. While there’re a few quotes in these blues, there’s no cliche, and the ragged tones come across as unique where a lesser player might make them sound contrived. And this is one of the few albums where I can definitely say that the vinyl is better— the CD just doesn’t reflect the warmth of Phillips’s backing (which gives Taylor’s jagged riffs a fair contrast).

And “Give Me Back My Wig” is going on the very next mixtape I make, I promise.

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