Taken Alive! (With Special Guest Sonny Boy Williamson)

We Say...

Review by Lenny Kaye

The blues revival of the early ‘60s that rescued many vintage artisans from undeserved obscurity found impressionable young minds across the ocean in England, where groups like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds proudly waved the banner of their interpretation of "R&B," which had more to do with electricity and Chess than the folk-based resurrection in America. Package tours featuring Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf created incandescent sparks wherever they touched down, and Sonny Boy Williamson (usually with a II attached, the pseudonym of Alex "Rice" Miller who always claimed he was the original, a matter left to blues scholars) returned to the British Isles to tour on his own, supported by some of these star-struck beat combos.

On December 30, 1963, backed by the Animals, he appeared at Newcastle's Club A-Go-Go. The hard-driving local band chosen to accompany him was led by Eric Burdon, a volatile shouter who idolized Bo Diddley and John Lee Hooker (the group would have a large hit with the Hook's "Boom Boom," heard here in nascent and somewhat hoarse form); textured by the organ stabs and sweeps of Alan Price, and a rhythm section honed by bassist Chas Chandler, later to boost Jimi Hendrix to prominence.

The Animals were plainly pumped, and one can only imagine Sonny Boy's amazement at seeing this young Anglo-Saxon audience swooning and rocking to his every harmonica flourish, hooting and hollering at his vocal trade-offs with Eric on "Nobody But You," and settling deep into da blooze when he lets it drop down to an intimate "Baby Don't You Worry." When the Animals are in their backup role, they run through the familiar twelve-bar changes with aplomb and a good deal of confidence; with Burdon, a wound-up dynamo even more hyper-driven by sharing a stage with his idol, out front, they lunge headlong into a music that has plainly gifted them inspiration and credibility, all the more remarkable from the way in which they transcend the formal parameters of the genre even as they pay tribute. As "House of the Rising Sun" will show a few short months in the future, the sound will be nothing like where it comes from, and yet perfectly evolutionary.

Sonny Boy will have his resurrection, but his past encloses him. He will not live long enough to enjoy riches much more than this night of honorarium. When Burdon thanks the crowd for crowd for coming out to see SBW II , because "he's getting on these days," the moment is prescient. "Rice" will pass on in May of 1965, only 53 (though his cloudy beginnings once suggested he might have been closer to 70), even as the music he helped foster went on to many more incarnations, like yet another rendition of "C Jam Blues." We've all been there at one time or another.