Mississippi John Hurt - "You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley" (1966)

Happy Friday Friends,

Here's the legendary MIssissippi John Hurt taking us into the weekend.

This is from a performance (episode 36) of Pete Seeger's short-lived folk-centric music program, "Rainbow Quest", which aired originally on New Jersey's own UHF channel 47 (WNJU-TV) in '65 & '66.

We're not sure if this is actually Hurt's last television performance, but its definitely one of his last as he would die of a heart attack in November 1966.

Don't die til you're dead, kids!  

The Kinks - "Got Love If You Want It" (1964)

Happy Friday Friends!

Here's a clip of The Kinks performing their version of the Slim Harpo classic, "Got Love If You Want It".

Some great early footage of the band, plus a couple of killer harmonica solo by Ray Davies!

We count at least 6 or 7 different camera angles being used in this footage which was pretty ahead of its time in 1964!

Enjoy!

Charles Brown - "Merry Christmas, Baby" (1984)

Its the holidays friends!

Here's some slow & low nightclub blues courtesy of Mr. Charles Brown to help you through your holiday Friday!

Enjoy!

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Leadbelly - "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (2009) - Stardust Records

Hello Friends,

Lordy, lordy.  We've got some great country-folk-blues on the turntable tonight courtesy of Mr. Huddie William Ledbetter.

Perfect soundtrack to a booze-soaked, hot and swampy Memorial Day Weekend while sitting under a tree with a cold cocktail in one hand and the leash of a mangy mutt in the other! 

This compilation contains the hits "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", "Bourgeois Blues",  "Goodnight Irene", "Looky looky Yonder / Black Betty / Yellow Women's Doorbells", "John Hardy" & "The Gallis Pole".

Yes, "Black Betty" is that "Black Betty" and Led Zeppelin did, um, borrow heavily from "The Gallis Pole" for their own, "Gallows Pole".

RATING: 4.5 heads were found in driving wheels but his body was never found out of 5

Savoy Brown are just OK...

Savoy Brown - "Looking In" (1970) - Parrot Records

Hello Friends,

We had high, high hopes for this one kids.  Just look at that album cover!

We were hoping for some dark, gloomy, psychedelic blues maybe like a British Blue Cheer or a bluesier Black Sabbath, but what we get instead sounds more akin to a second rate Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac or a less interesting version of Ten Years After.

Straightforward blues rock boogie helmed by the band's founder & lead guitarist, Kim Simmonds.   Its not that its terrible, its just not that interesting and kind of boring!

Looking In is the band's sixth album and their first as a quartet (songwriter-vocalist, Chris Youlden left the band earlier in the year).  

The record is bookended by two short and pleasant sounding guitar solo pieces: "Gypsy" & "Romanoff".  The second song, "Poor Girl" (written by bassist Tony "Tone" Stevens) is the albums most blistering blues tune and features some very solid psychedelic-tinged guitar playing. (Although at first, we thought the singer was singing "she's a porker" instead of "she's a poor girl" and we preferred that version over the real one!)

"Money Can't Save Your Soul" is decent, but kind of long and boring.  Same with the instrumental, "Sunday Night".  Stuff like this you can see at a decent local blues bar almost any time.  The upbeat, blues-boogie, "Looking In" closes out Side One with some more impressive playing by Simmonds (who also served as producer on the album!)

Side Two's "Take It Easy" sounds a little like early Grateful Dead or maybe even like The Faces if they took a bunch of quaaludes. "Sitting and Thinking" is another Simmond's guitar showcase and the nearly nine-minute "Leavin' Again" sounds like an overwrought, underwhelming early Blues jam by leftcoasters Quicksilver Messenger Service or the aforementioned, Grateful Dead.  A lot of fuss, just not that fun! 

FUN FACT: After this album, singer-rhythm guitarist "Lonesome" Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens and drummer Roger Earl would leave the band to go on and form Foghat leaving Kim Simmonds on his own to re-form Savoy Brown.  He was probably a dick!

Believe us, friends, we really wanted this album to be great! In an era when hard rock, British blues and psychedelia got along so well, our hopes and expectations were set very, very high.  No matter how hard we tried, we really couldn't get our heads nodding and fists pumping while listening to Savoy Brown.

Still, that album cover!

RATING: 3 rattlesnake boots, elephant bag & genuine crocodile hats out of 5  

B. B. King and Willie Nelson - "Night Life" (1984)

Hello Friends,

Found this great clip while watching and listening to tons of B.B. King footage last week.

Willie Nelson + Top Hat = Awesome.  

Enjoy!

RIP B.B King - Live in Stockholm 1974

Hello Friends,

Well as they say, the thrill is gone!

Blues legend, B.B. King passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 89.

Like any virtuoso of his craft, B.B. King made his incredibly smooth and precise guitar playing seem effortless and easy!

The following is from the liner notes of King's Live in Cook County Jail record from 1971:
With his trusty Gibson guitar Lucille, King developed his audiences in stages, connecting with African-Americans region by region in the 1950s and '60s, breaking through to the American mainstream in the '70s and becoming a global ambassador for the blues soon thereafter, becoming the first blues musician to play the Soviet Union.

R.I.P. BB!

Pink Eyed Blues

Johnny Winter - "Still Alive and Well" (1973) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

We were so amp'd after hearing Johnny Winter And's Live album that we dug through our archives and pulled out this record from 1973, the ironically-titled Still Alive and Well (ironic because he died last month, ya dummy!)

Hard thumpin', swampy, sleazy blues from start to finish.  The type of electric blues that really came into its own in the early 1970's.   Let's down some shots of tequila and have a listen...

The record kicks off with the oft-covered Big Bill Broonzy song, "Rock Me Baby" that Winter approaches with no subtlety.  Its loud, sleazy and in your face from the opening guitar lick to the growling vocals.

"Can't You Feel It" (written by Dan Hartman who also wrote the song, "Free Ride") sounds like a bluesy Gene Simmons singing lead for The Faces.

Rick Derringer (who produced the LP & plays some guitar) wrote the boozy ballad, "Cheap Tequila" (which also features Todd Rundgren on mellotron!)  For the life of us, we can't figure out how this song wasn't a huge hit!

"All Tore Down" & "Rock and Roll" close out the side.  Both feature some pretty hard rocking blues, the latter sounding a lot like fellow Texans, ZZ Top.

There's two Stones' covers on Side Two.  "Silver Train" fucking rocks and was released by Johnny Winter months before the Stones released it on Goats Head Soup.  Honestly, after hearing his version, they probably should have shelved it!  Winter's version cranks in comparison!

"Ain't Nothing to Me" makes us wish that Johnny Winter did more swampy, backwoods Country tunes.  Its fantastic and authentic sounding! 

Rick Derringer also wrote the title track for Winter, "Still Alive and Well".  Decent, but pretty much sounds like "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo, part 2".

Johnny wrote the slow, druggy, walking blues, "Too Much Seconal" featuring great lyrics like:

"Baby, I don't believe you no good at all.
Well woman 'cuz you've been drinking too much whiskey,
I believe you're takin' too much Seconal"

Nice!

The album closes with another take on a Rolling Stones' classic, "Let It Bleed".  Winter's version rocks a bit harder and boogies out a bit more.  Once again he's able to outsleaze the original which is no small feat!

Great album with some great underappreciated songs and some fine raunchy guitar work which teeters between vintage classic blues and a dirty, rusty chainsaw. 

Terrible, terrible album cover.  I think it gave me nightmares!

RATING: 4 Roses In Your Low Rent Tomb out of 5

R.I.P. Johnny Winter

Johnny Winter - "Live Johnny Winter And" (1971) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

A couple of weeks ago legendary electric bluesman and everyone's favorite albino, Johnny Winter, passed away at age of 70!

Originally hailing from Beaumont, Texas, Johnny Winter's 50+ year career was that of a true blues troubadour recording dozens of records and playing thousands of live shows without ever really crossing over into the mainstream!

Born John Dawson Winter III, he played Woodstock, jammed with Jimi Hendrix and backed up Janis Joplin.  He was best known for his early work with ex-McCoy Rick Derringer ("Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo") and for playing in his younger brother's band, Edgar Winter's White Trash.  Basically he was a weirder and freakier-looking Stevie Ray Vaughn! 

In 1977, he fulfilled a lifelong dream to play with his idol, Muddy Waters.  Winters collaborated with and produced Waters' last 3 or 4 records and they're all really good! (Even won him some Grammys!)

In honor of good ol' Johnny, tonight we're listening to Johnny's 1971 seminal live record, Live Johnny Winter And.

The "And" of the title would be Derringer (on guitar & vocals), Randy Jo Hobbs (on bass & vocals) and Bobby Caldwell (on drums).  The songs were recorded during the band's 1970 tour stops at Pirate's World in Dania, Florida (a pirate-themed amusement park which hosted tons of great bands from '69 to '73!), NYC's Fillmore East and Portchester, NY's own Capitol Theater!

Solid, high energy, live blues set from Johnny and the gang.  Side One begins with a rip-roaring cover of the Sonny Boy Williamson classic "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and continues shredding through a 12 minute take on B.B. King's "It's My Own Fault" and an extra sleazy take on the already sleazy, "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

Side Two opens with a "Rock & Roll Medley" which has Johnny & company interpreting 3 rock & roll classics, "Great Balls of Fire", "Long Tally Sally" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On".

"Mean Town Blues" is the only Winter original on the set (which is kind of interesting being that by 1971 Johnny had released 4 solo albums and one would think that he would want to self-promote himself a bit more than with just one original song!  But, hey, who are we to judge?)

The record closes with another high energy take on another rock & roll classic, Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".  Great album!  Great live set!  Johnny Winter will be missed!

RATING: 4 its a gas-gas-gases out of 5


R.I.P. Johnny Winter!

Frijid Pink

Frijid Pink - "Frijid Pink" (1970) - Parrot Records

Hello Friends,

Tiki T. and I picked this little treasure up at a flea market over the summer.  We got home, poured ourselves some drinks and dropped the needle down only to be emotionally devastated when we realized the copy of the record we just bought was warped and littered with skips!  

ARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Now its winter and we're freezing our asses off!  Luckily, we found another, more pristine copy on Ebay and we just couldn't say no!

So crank up the distortion to 10, kids, the order of the Universe has been restored!

Frijid Pink's debut album is an unsung psych-blues rock classic!  This band was so well received in their hometown of Detroit that they shared bills with such legendary acts as The Stooges, The MC5 and The Amboy Dukes; they even had a British band of young upstarts going by the name of Led Zeppelin opening for them at Detroit's Grande Ballroom. Motor City madness!

The opener "God Gave Me You", a bluesy ballad, features some passionate growling vocals by lead singer Kelly Green which builds up to a blistering guitar solo. The songs, "Crying Shame" and "Drivin' Blues" both sound very Cream influenced.  (Tiki T. hears a lot of "Tales of Brave Ulysses" on the former!)  "I'm On My Way" is a fun boogie-blues number which includes vocal shout-outs to blues-rock contemporaries like Canned Heat & Savoy Brown (who were also Parrot Records labelmates.)  

The album's high point is the band's cover of "House of the Rising Sun".  It cranks!  

"I Want To Be Your Lover" sounds like a second-rate (and white) Otis Redding imitator singing lead for Big Brother & The Holding Company.

The album closes out with the slow boozy blues number, "Boozin' Blues" featuring some good old fashioned Motor City shredding on lead guitar courtesy of Gary Ray Thompson-- another unsung guitar hero! 

RATING: 4.5 Gotta hit another city, get drunk, before I get home out of 5

Gimmie Some Truth

Jeff Beck - "Truth" (1968) - Epic Records

Hello Friends,

Jeff Beck's first LP gets a little lost in the shuffle these days, but it is arguably one of the more important blues-rock records to come out of the last 60's.

Not only does it feature some proto-heavy metal blues guitar work by the innovative Beck, but its the first album to feature Rod Stewart on lead vocals.  Produced by legendary Mickie Most (!), with a young Ron Wood on bass(!!) and expert session drummer, Mick Waller, this album will rock your fucking socks off!

Beck left the Yardbirds in 1966, so what better way to kick-off his first solo LP with a hard rock, bluesy rearragement of the Yardbirds' hit, "Shape of Things"?  Not only is Beck's guitar virtuosity on full display, but a young Rod Stewart's prowess when it comes to interpreting a song lyric.  Boy, this guy might have a future in biz!  

The combination of Beck and Stewart breath life into more traditional covers like Bonnie Dobson's "Morning Dew", Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me" & "I Ain't Superstitious", Jerome Kern's "Ol' Man River", and the English instrumental, "Greensleeves".  (Three originals on the album are credited to "Jeffrey Rod"-- which, coincidentally, would also be my porn name!)

The highlight on the record is the instrumental, "Beck's Bolero".  Written by Yardbirder and session man, Jimmy Page, and featuring Beck & Page squaring off on lead guitars, John Paul Jones on bass, Nicky Hopkins on piano and Keith Moon (credited on the sleeve as "You Know Who") on drums.  That's a shitload of talent on one song!

 

Pretty amazing record all around... a must-listen!  And if you can, listen to it the way it was meant to be heard... Loud and On Vinyl! 

RATING: 5 SHAPES OF THINGS TO COME OUT OF 5

Disraeli Gears

Cream - "Disraeli Gears" (1967) - ATCO

Hello friends,

Even though its Fall outside, its the Summer of Love tonight on Vinyl in the Valley!  Tonight we're cranking Cream's second (and best) LP, Disraeli Gears.  Psychedelic blues at its absolute best!

In 1966, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce & Eric Clapton formed the first rock & roll supergroup; a heavy-sounding British trio with roots planted firmly in traditional blues and jazz music.  Big egos would eventually win out and the band would break-up just two years later, but not before leaving a giant mark in rock & roll history!   

The album opens with an amazing one-two punch: "Strange Brew"-- a trippy blues tune featuring Clapton on lead vocals-- and the iconic "Sunshine of Your Love"-- featuring one of classic rock's most famous riffs.  

There's some great wah-wah pedal work on "World of Pain" and more great guitar-bass-drums interwining on the Bruce-helmed, "Dance the Night Away".  Ginger Baker's "Blue Condition" (probably the album's weak link) finishes off Side One.

Side Two begins with the awesome "Tales of Brave Ulysses"-- a psychedelic-blues ballad based on Homer's Odyssey with some more killer wah-wah playing. The equally excellent, "SWABLR" (aka "She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow") follows.  Not sure exactly what's going on in this song, but it may be about having sex with a transvestite!  Hey, don't judge! 
     

Next up is Jack Bruce's absolutely haunting, "We're Going Wrong".  With spare, falsetto vocals and tribal drumming, its a song that would not be out of place in some 1967 teenager's Vietnam nightmare or acid flashback!    

Clapton sings and arranges a version of "Outside Woman Blues"-- an obscure call-and-response blues tune written by Blind Joe Reynolds.  Not to be outdone, Bruce comes back with a raucous honky-tonk blues number, "Take It Back"-- which may or may not be about kids burning their draft cards.  The album concludes with the barroom diddy, "Mother's Lament"-- a perfectly silly and nostalgic conclusion to such a bold and ground-breaking album!  

Fun Fact: Hey kids, did you know that the title of this album is a malapropism?  When Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker were talking about bicycles, a roadie chimed in with the statement that "yea, its got them disraeli gears" mistaking the 19th Century British Prime Minister for "derailleur gears". 

In a similar story, one time on Election day I saw two sassy ladies at Walmart discussing the possible outcome of the Presidential Election and one turned to the other and said, "It don't matter who wins the popular vote, its the electrical vote that counts!"  ZAP! 

RATING: 5 Tales of Brave Ulysses out of 5

Fleetwood Mac Attack

Fleetwood Mac - "Greatest Hits" (1971) - CBS

Hello Friends,

Are you ready to hear some "Landslide"?  What about "Go Your Own Way", "The Chain", or "Rhiannon"?  How about some (gulp) "Little Lies"?

Well, if so, you've come to the wrong place!  On tonight's "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits-- greatest "hits" before they became super successful megastars of the late 70's.   And this stuff rocks!

Fleetwood Mac started out as a British blues band in the late 1960's and this compilation LP captures some of their best bluesy & psychedelic tunes from 1968 to 1971.  Fronted by guitarist, songwriter & vocalist, Peter Green, the early Fleetwood Mac was in the same league as late-period Yardbirds or bands like Ten Years After.  Just listen to the opener, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and you'll see that this band couldn't be more different that the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks version of the band!



Founding & perennial members, drummer Mick Fleetwood & bassist John McVie are present here; as is a piano-playing Christine McVie on a song or two.  But by 1970-- due in part to the large amounts of LSD he was taking--  Peter Green would leave the band, find religion and basically drop out of the rock'n'roll life for a while.  He would later be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, undergo multiple ESTs and spend much of the decade in and out of psychiatric hospitals!  Sounds like a party!!     

Also included on this LP are great forgotten classics like the incomparable "Oh Well", "Shake Your Moneymaker" (by Elmore James), "Need Your Love So Bad" (by Little Willie John), "Rattlesnake Shake", the heartbreaking "Man of the World" and the original version of "Black Magic Woman", which was covered by Santana in 1970.  (The Santana version is a bit "smoother" sounding, but we definitely prefer The Mac's original!)

Here's a clip of the band performing their instrumental, "Albatross", in 1970.  Supposedly, John Lennon has said this song influenced his song "Sun King" from Abbey Road...

RATING: 4.5 Green Manalishis with the Two Prong Crowns out of 5    

Bring a Nickel, Tap Your Feet

Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Willy and the Poor Boys" (1969) (Fantasy Records)

Hello friends,

We're cranking some Creedence tonight and we're loving every second of it!

This record has a real "hootenanny" feel to it!  Its as if John Fogerty & company are inviting us all to join them "down on the corner" for a good old fashioned jam session.  

(Maybe this was Fogerty's attempt at doing the down home American-version of Sgt Peppers... Thoughts?)

"Down on the Corner" opens the album and introduces us to the band's alter ego, Willy and the Poor Boys.

"It Came Out of the Sky" is a rockabilly rocker.  "Feelin' Blue" is a swampy blues jam.

"Cotton Fields" and "Midnight Special" are two Leadbelly covers.

"Fortunate Son" remains an all time great punk-protest song.  

"Side o' the Road" sounds like a classic Booker T & the M.G.'s instrumental.  

The album concludes with the dark and haunting ballad, "Effigy".  Fucking Effigy! With the plodding drums and swampy guitars this might be the band's best song-- which is really saying A LOT! 

Effigy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrL00AxBNJk

Greatest American band of all time?  Quite possibly!

RATING: 5 fires burning on the palace lawn out of 5

Hello Blues

Floyd Cramer - Hello Blues (1960)

Hello Friends and Hello Blues!

Pour that bourbon neat and smoke 'em if you got 'em because tonight you're in for a real treat featuring the "slip note" piano stylings of the late, great Floyd Cramer.

Cramer-- one of the progenitors of what became known as the "Nashville Sound"-- tickles the ivories on this very laid-back and easy-going country-blues LP.   The highlights include the lead track-- "I'll Never Be Free"-- the standard-- "Stormy Weather"-- and Cramer's version of "Re-Enlistment Blues"-- from the 1953 film, From Here to Eternity.

Great album cover too!

Cramer, incidentally, died of lung cancer in 1997.  Don't smoke, kids! 

RATING: 4 sweet-looking sweater vests out of a possible 5