had this back in the day. at first it grated - john lee unplugged is a silly idea! it was clearly an attempt to upgrade the great man from spine shivering electric band rocker to a folkie.... but as you listen more you realise it gives you a load of insight into things you've probly missed in his stand-still-if-you-dare earlier (and later) recordings. try it. i lost my vinyl to a friend and i'm delighted to have it back!
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Let me tell you about Let Me Tell You About the Blues, a series of three-disc packages (several of which are available on eMusic) that attempts to trace the evolution of the music by focusing on geographic areas. Results are mixed, as they almost always are on compilations, in this case due largely to the fact that anything recorded in a specific city or region is defined as belonging to that area. To cite one… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
It's tempting, given the relative paucity of Americans, to suggest that the recently released This Is the Blues, Volumes 1-4 instead be titled This Is The British Blues, or, even better, This Is British Blues-Rock. After all, nearly every track on these four discs comes from either older tribute albums to Peter Green's original Fleetwood Mac (as well as a bit of his solo work), British blues pioneer Cyril Davies and American blues institution John… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Postwar, electric blues guitar in Texas all derives from T-Bone Walker, says conventional wisdom, and when you hear a great stylist like Pee Wee Crayton soloing in that jazzy, single-string tradition, it seems like an immutable law. But there were Texas guitarists who weren't influenced by Walker, and most who were brought enough of their own thing to T-Bone's to keep it interesting. Even today, the tradition not only lives on, but continues to evolve.… more »
The biggest debate in blues circles these days is, "where did the blues begin?" Ever since the blues revival of the 50s and 60s, the answer has been "the Mississippi Delta." But in recent years, more than a few blues buffs have argued, that while the Delta is where the harshest form of blues indeed gelled, there is very little evidence to suggest that blues started there. Further, Delta blues in its heyday was almost… more »
To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever made a good case for a Cincinnati blues sound, but the Queen City was no stranger to the blues. A rough-hewn, urban backwater on the banks of the Ohio River (which is also the Kentucky state line), Cincinnati is arguably the most southern city to find itself misplaced north of the Mason-Dixon line, and as home to King Records played occasional host to a variety of… more »
The Moneywasters Social Club had sold 557 tickets (50 cents in advance, 65 at the door) to its dance at the Rhythm Club in Natchez, Mississippi, on April 23, 1940. Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra, originally scheduled to play, had cancelled when a booking came through at the Apollo Theater in Harlem for the same night. The replacement was Walter Barnes 'Sophisticated Swing Orchestra, but nobody in Natchez's black community of about 9600 people was complaining. Clarinetist… more »
