passings
Etta James, singer, January 25, 1938-January 20, 2012
“I’d Rather Go Blind”
Live, Austin, Tx. (Austin City Limits), 2005
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Recording (1967)
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lagniappe
She was discovered, as a teenager, by yesterday’s featured artist; he produced her first record, which was a hit.
Etta James, “Roll With Me Henry” (AKA “The Wallflower”)
Produced by Johnny Otis, 1954
passings
Hubert Sumlin, guitar player, November 16, 1931-December 4, 2011
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Howlin’ Wolf, with Hubert Sumlin (guitar)
“Smokestack Lightning” (AKA “Smoke Stack Lightning”; rec. 1956, Chicago)
In a country that paid proper respect to its cultural heritage, this would be played for children in school, as part of their cultural education. Instead kids encounter it, if at all, on TV—the soundtrack to a Viagra commercial.
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“Back Door Man” (rec. 1960, Chicago)
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“Wang Dang Doodle” (rec. 1960, Chicago)
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
I started listening to people like Hubert Sumlin and trying to deal with a less muscular way of reaching people . . .
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random thoughts
Rankin, Loda, Cissna Park, Schwer, Gilmer, Watseka: the world is filled with places we’ve never even heard of (many less than 150 miles away), as I was reminded yesterday driving home from Danville, Illinois, where I’d gone to see clients at the prison.
Has Monday ever sounded better?
Snooks Eaglin (with George Porter, Jr., bass; Kenneth Blevins, drums)
Live, New York (Lone Star Roadhouse), early ’90s
“I Just Cried Oh”
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“Baby Please”
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“Lipstick Traces”
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“You Don’t Have To Go”
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“Young Girl”
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“Red Beans” (with Jon Cleary, piano)
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Great guitar players don’t play notes—they play sounds.
old stuff
Bertha “Chippie” Hill (with Louis Armstrong, cornet), “Trouble In Mind”
Rec. 2/23/1926, Chicago
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Growing up in the 1960s, the 1920s seemed as far away as the other side of the moon. No more—time changes your perspective on time. The distance between, say, 1926 and 1966 is smaller than that between 1966 and today.
The 1920s? They’re just down the block and around the corner.
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reading table
1926
The porchlight coming on again,
Early November, the dead leaves
Raked in piles, the wicker swing
Creaking. Across the lots
A phonograph is playing Ja-Da.An orange moon. I see the lives
Of neighbors, mapped and marred
Like all the wars ahead, and R.
Insane, B. with his throat cut,
Fifteen years from now, in Omaha.I did not know them then.
My airedale scratches at the door.
And I am back from seeing Milton Sills
And Doris Kenyon. Twelve years old.
The porchlight coming on again.—Weldon Kees (1914-1955)
This guy sounded so good the other day—let’s hear some more.
B.B. King with T-Bone Walker, “Bad News”/“Sweet Sixteen”
Live, Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey, California), 9/16/1967
two takes
Need a Monday morning boost? You’ve come to the right place.
“Let the Good Times Roll”
Koko Taylor (1928-2009), live
Years ago, when I was at Alligator Records, I worked with her—what a sweetheart.
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Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five, c. 1946
Vodpod videos no longer available.**********
lagniappe
art beat
Yesterday at Chicago’s Goodman Theater:
MARK ROTHKO: Wait. Stand closer. You’ve got to get close. Let it pulsate. Let it work on you. Closer. . . . There. Let it spread out. Let it wrap its arms around you; let it embrace you, filling even your peripheral vision so nothing else exists or has ever existed or will ever exist. Let the picture do its work—But work with it. Meet it halfway for God’s sake. Lean forward, lean into it. Engage with it!
—John Logan, Red (2009)
flicks
Bessie Smith, St. Louis Blues (1929)
Part 1
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Part 2
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Herman E. Johnson, “She’s A-Looking For Me”*
Rec. 1961, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
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lagniappe
So my life was just that way, to keep out of trouble, drink my little whiskey, an’ go an’ do little ugly things like that, but in a QT way.
—Herman E. Johnson (August Kleinzahler, Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow [1995], epigraph [I’ve changed “cue-tee” to “QT”])
*This is how this song is titled on the album Louisiana Country Blues (Arhoolie). To these ears a better rendering would be “She Out Looking For Me.”
Stick around long enough and images that conjure your own past, going out to clubs on Chicago’s south and west sides, start to turn up as history.
Ricky Allen, “No Better Time Than Now” (One-Way 1974)
Light: On The South Side (Numero 2009)
Yeah, that’s Junior Wells at 1:08.
It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how great somebody could be.
B.B. King, “How Blue Can You Get?”
Live, Sing Sing Prison (Ossining, New York), 1972
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lagniappe
last night
W. S. Merwin, who just finished a term as U.S. Poet Laureate, gave a reading at Chicago’s downtown library, where he talked about this and that:
The English language is a great dump. Everything that has come into it has stayed there.
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Poetry begins . . . with listening.
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I wanted to be open . . . to anything that sounded like poetry.
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To animals the meaning is the sound—and that’s pretty close to poetry.
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Time is one of the great human fictions.
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Many of the most important things we do are not calculated. They take us by surprise.
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What the arts are made of is nothing but pure attention.
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radio
Happy (100th) Birthday, Papa Jo! WCKR-FM’s Centennial Festival, mentioned Monday, continues until noon tomorrow.
