Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: J.B. Lenoir

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Total Tracks: 15   Total Length: 37:47

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John Morthland

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John Morthland has been writing about music since the days of electronically rechanneled stereo and duophonic sound. His name has darkened the mastheads of Roll...more »

11.16.10
They don't make 'em like J.B. Lenoir any more
2003 | Label: MCA

They don't make 'em like J.B. Lenoir any more, but then they didn't make others like him even back in his heyday. If the name doesn't sound familiar, it's because he died in a 1966 car wreck just as the blues revival was starting to notice him. J.B.'s known for writing and recording overt protest songs ("Eisenhower Blues," "Korea Blues") when nobody else was doing so, but he also came up with rollicking blues wisdom like "Mama Talk to Your Daughter," featured saxophones over his propulsive rhythm guitar, sang in a preternaturally high, almost feminine, voice and billed his sound as "African hunch rhythms." Way, way cool.

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Most of the CD compilations released in conjunction with the major television documentary series The Blues were devoted to famous bluesmen or blues-rockers. So those who administered the CD companion volumes are to be applauded for taking a chance and including an installment on Lenoir, who — unlike most of the rest of the spotlighted performers — will probably not be familiar to many, perhaps most, of the series’ viewers. This anthology could well be subtitled “J.B. Lenoir at Chess,” for though his career did take in work at several different labels, all but two of these 1950s tracks were first released on Chess. Frankly, it doesn’t make a case forLenoir as a blues giant; it’s good but second-division ’50s electric Chicago blues, a little monotonous in flavor, distinguished by his so-high-pitched-it-could-be-a-woman vocals. It does have the Lenoir songs that have proved to be his most enduring, those being his political commentaries “Eisenhower Blues” and “Korea Blues,” “Mama Talk to Your Daughter,” and “Don’t Touch My Head”; “Eisenhower Blues” and “Mama Talk to Your Daughter,” both originally released on Parrot, are the two non-Chess pieces on offer. It’s too bad, however, that it doesn’t license any of his mid-’60s socially conscious acoustic tracks, which demonstrate there was considerably more range to Lenoir’s music and artistry than was displayed in his 1950s recordings. – Richie Unterberger

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