Friday, January 25th
tonight in Chicago
He’s playing at Buddy Guy’s club (Legends), opening for Buddy himself.
Toronzo Cannon, “All Along the Watchtower” (B. Dylan), live, Detroit area (Auburn Hills), 2017
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: blues
2018
Tuesday, December 25th
Merry Christmas
Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Christmas Eve Blues,” 1928
*****
Victoria Spivey (with Lonnie Johnson, guitar), “Christmas Morning Blues,” 1928
*****
Bessie Smith (with Joe Smith, cornet; Charlie Green, trombone; Fletcher Henderson, piano), “At the Christmas Ball,” 1925
*****
Leroy Carr, “Christmas in Jail—Ain’t That a Pain,” 1929
*****
Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers (feat. Charles Brown, vocals, keyboards), “Merry Christmas, Baby,” 1947
*****
Lowell Fulson, “Lonesome Christmas (I & II),” 1950
*****
Sonny Boy Williamson II, “Sonny Boy’s Christmas Blues,” 1951
*****
John Lee Hooker, “Blues for Christmas,” 1959
**********
lagniappe
random sights
this morning, Oak Park, Ill.
2018
Tuesday, December 4th
timeless
This guy, whom I worked with in the 1970s, co-producing this track and a few others for Alligator Records (Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1), just turned ninety. One of my sons, now older than I was then, heard him the other night at a Chicago club, where, he said, his guitar playing was “robust.” How wonderful to be ninety years old and robust. How wonderful, too, to be able to share music with a son.
“Breaking up Somebody’s Home” (T. Matthews, A. Jackson), 1978
***
Here he is forty years later.
“People Get Ready” (C. Mayfield), “That’s All Right,” Chicago, 2018
2018
Monday, October 22nd
more
Junior Wells (vocals, harmonica [1934-1998]) with Buddy Guy (guitar), Phil Guy (guitar), A.C. Reed (tenor saxophone), et al., live (TV show), Chicago, early ’70s
“Little by Little”
***
“Mystery Train”
**********
lagniappe
random sights
yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.
2018
Friday, October 19th
voices I miss
Junior Wells (vocals, harmonica [1934-1998]) with Otis Rush (guitar [1935-2018]), Jack Myers (bass [c. 1937-2011]), Fred Below (drums [1926-1988]), “Hoodoo Man Blues,” live, Berlin, 1966
2018
Friday, October 12th
more
Otis Rush (vocals, guitar) with Little Brother Montgomery (piano), Jack Myers (bass), Fred Below (drums), live, Berlin, 1966
“All Your Love (I Miss Loving)”
***
“Sweet Little Angel”
**********
lagniappe
reading table
The silence will be sudden then last.
—Deborah Landau, from “The Silence Will Be Sudden Then Last” (Poetry, 10/18)
2018
Monday, October 8th
passings
Otis Rush, guitarist, singer, April 29, 1935-September 29, 2018
Today, remembering him, we revisit a couple of posts.
1/21/10
Otis Rush (with Fred Below [drums], et al.), “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” live, Germany, 1966
I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.
—Otis Rush
*****
9/15/18
basement jukebox
Otis Rush (1934-)
“All Your Love (I Miss Loving),” 1958
***
“I Can’t Quit You Baby,” 1956
***
“Double Trouble,” 1958
2018
Saturday, September 15th
basement jukebox
Otis Rush (1934-)
“All Your Love (I Miss Loving),” 1958
***
“I Can’t Quit You Baby,” 1956
***
“Double Trouble,” 1958
**********
lagniappe
found words
Actor we forgot was married to a model
—AOL
2018
Monday, September 3rd
timeless
Bessie Smith, “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” 1929
**********
lagniappe
art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago
Charles White (1918-1979), Bessie Smith (Charles White: A Retrospective, closing today; traveling to New York [Museum of Modern Art], then Los Angeles [Los Angeles County Museum of Art])
2018
Thursday, July 12th
basement jukebox
Buddy Guy, “This Is the End,” 1959
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Butterfly
sleeping
on the temple bell.—Yosa Buson, 1716-1784 (translated from Japanese by Robert Hass)
music clip of the day 