The Magnificent Goldberg

good read, I particularly enjoyed this passage: "Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!" Nice sentence but not true. The sixties/seventies generation who thought that underground rock was a rebellion against the man were buying records almost exclusively from COlumbia, RCA, Warner/Elektra/Atlantic and EMI - the majors, anyway, who fooled the flower power kids into believing they were on their side. As I recollect, the only indie company that sold a shed load of records in that period was Fantasy. MG

I am not sure if we are thinking the same way here. The question of whether rock (or other post-blues influences) did make itself felt in blues/R&B is an interesting one and merits to be discussed. But "these influences" weren't "already present in blues" in the 40s/50s. They cannot have been because there was no "rock" yet, see? The way I understand it, part of what is commonly considered "blues" evolved into R&B after 1945 (WITHIN the blues idiom). When rock had established itself as a lasting popular music idiom of its own by the early 60s and when 50s R&B had evolved into soul by the 60s it might indeed be interesting to see to what extent these genres helped to influence and modify blues AGAIN. Sort of crossover ... But is this aspect really on a line with what happened in the "pre-rock" days (disregarding any question of which pre-rock recordings by black artists might make a valid claim to actually being all-out rock'n'roll songs/tunes that just weren't labeled that way yet because that term had not yet been coined )? Sorry, I think you misunderstood my post. "These influences" (in the first sentence) refers to the influences of R&B, (and later soul and funk) on blues, not the influence of rock on blues, which is dealt with in the second sentence. MG

No more than I think that Gene Ammons' 'Red Top','My foolish heart',Johnny Hodges' 'Castle rock' or Dizzy's 'Manteca' weren't considered jazz records. MG

Yes, while I was getting the rubbish and recycling out, I realised I should have mentioned the Orioles, Ravens, Dominos etc. And Johnny Ace, too. Perhaps your mention of black rock & roll drove it out of my mind I certainly am not equipped to say "as soon as he plays this chord or uses that inflection in his voice he is no longer blues but R&B". Right! Thanks to you both. OK, so look, is it that you're saying that these influences were already present in blues (whoever we like to include in it) in the forties/early fifties and so their presence in the late fifties sixties wasn't anything remarkable? But the influence of rock musicians later was remarkable, because it was new and foreign, so it's worth talking about? Well, OK, so who did it affect? MG

Exactly. To rattle off just a few of those I am fairly well familiar with in your list, MG, I'd file both guitarists like Gatemouth Brown and Pee Wee Crayton on the one hand and vocalists like Big Mama Thornton, combos like the Griffin Brothers (great classic jump blues dancefloor fillers among their repertoire!) and trios such as the Big Three or vocalists such as Willie Mabon (not a zillion miles away from Lloyd Glenn on the one hand and Charles Brown/Johnny Moore on the other) MOST DEFINITELY under R&B. And Brownie McGhee's early output (long before his association with Sonny Terry) has always and by all accounts been classified as very much in the "Urban blues"/City Blues (and therefore R&B) vein (which is why many blues scribes have often wondered how much of a "down home" act the Terry/McGhee due REALLY was at heart (beyond of what the white college audiences clamored for). And the examples could go on ... Like I said, the stylistic boundaries were very blurred in the 1945-60 era IMO. Which is not the worst thing because there really is no need to try and pigeonhole everything, particularly if this means that one reverts back to the archaic thinking of those who initiated the "folk blues" revival. So, really, MG, your list does not leave very much for R&B. So what is it that you would classify as 50s R&B? BLACK rock'nroll only? That would miss the point IMO and is not borne out by contemporary sources either. In short, really sorry to disagree ... Forties/fifties black R&B - well, it's Spoon, Mayfield, Milton, JOe Liggins, Milburn, Julia Lee, Hadda Brooks, Charles Brown, Wynonie, Fess, Roy Brown, Big Joe, Ivory Joe, Bullmoose, Smiley Lewis, Louis Jordan, Todd Rhodes, DInah Washington, Dave Bartholemew, Cleanhead, Piano Red, Billy Wright, and so on and so on. ANd JOhnny Otis, of course. Not Rock & Roll, I think. But quite different, I also think, from the people listed earlier. MG

Seriously, Lou DOnaldson would - or at least COULD - have been a lot better at CTI than at Blue Note in those days. Even with DOn Sebesky's arrangements to phone in his parts for. However, he'd probably have been even better at Groove Merchant. I suppose, really, ANYBODY would have been better ANYWHERE ELSE than Blue Note in those days. Oh, except Columbia. MG

Oh, Snuffy Garrett! Thought he was at Liberty for ever. MG

So could he .... er... well. That's Grant Green - Shades of Green, in case the pic vanishes Illinois Jacquet - Jacquet's got it - Atlantic David Newman - COncrete jungle - Prestige now Jimmy McGriff - Sky walk - Milestone (mine ain't got a cut corner, cos I got it the day it came out - I'm a fan, see?) MG

Dunno Dan. I@m the one asking questions, 'ere. I am not an expert. MG

Let's liven the thread up This not that or even those MG

Well, certainly not a Kudu album with Hank Crawford, Johnny 'Hammond' Smith and Grover Washington, with arrangements by Bob James, Dave Matthews or Pee Wee Ellis I don't remember hearing any Peggy Lee in the seventies. I think I'm happy with Madame Foo Foo, with Groove Holmes on Groove Merchant. I wouldn't have put her on Kudu, either. MG

Not sure I follow that. I don't think, certainly not in those days, their was confusion between blues and R&B. Here's a list of the blues artists who appeared in the R&B chart in that period. (I excluded Jr Parker because I've never heard his Sun material.) Andrew Tibbs Arbee Stidham Archibald Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup B B King Big Maceo Big Mama Thornton Big Three Trio Brownie McGhee Danny Overbea Eddie Boyd Elmore James Floyd Dixon Gatemouth Brown Griffin Brothers Guitar Slim Howlin' Wolf James Wayne Jimmy Nelson Jimmy Wilson John Lee Hooker L C Williams Lightnin' Hopkins Little Son Jackson Little Walter Little Willie Littlefield Lonnie Johnson Lowell Fulson Memphis Slim Mercy Dee Muddy Waters Nighthawks Pee Wee Crayton Roosevelt Sykes Rosco Gordon Roy Hawkins Saunders King Smokey Hogg Sonny Boy Williams Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee) Tampa Red T-Bone Walker Willie Mabon I odn't think any of them would be thought to be R&B. MG

Sounds gripping! Now if only someone would buy the film rights... Sorry -- just thinking about how Hollywood is so convinced that there are no new decent ideas out there that it seems like 80% of the films out now are either remakes (of much better movies) or sequels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers_(film) Wiki lists 23 (twenty-three) Musketeers films plus 6 cartoons, the latest of which - Barbie & the three musketeers, in which the musketeers are all women, might just possibly be a porn version. MG

Not cool - very old fashioned over here. MG It's actually a traditional English plough boy look. The quiff is caused by all that time in the slipstream of the oxen. mg

A nice afternoon's vinyl so far CHarles Earl;and - The great pyramid - Mercury - my favourite among his Mercury albums. Now Les McCann - The truth - Pacific Jazz (Vogue UK) Next Les McCann - The shout - Pacific Jazz (Capitol LN series) Well, it's not that one actualy, but this one but that's such a poxy picture... MG

Well, yes, but Jimmy Reed had hit after hit in the sixties, mostly the early sixties, but one as late as '66, and G L Crockett had one in '65 in imitation of Reed; Little Joe Blue and J L Hooker both had sixties hits, so did Koko Taylor, Freddie KIng and ALbert (on King, not Stax), Sonny Boy WIlliamson, and not forgetting Tommy Tucker; and B B KIng and Junior Parker were hardly out of the R&B charts in the sixties. SO it looks as if there was always a bit of room for straight ahead blues. COmpanies like Chess, Peacock, Nashboro and Vee-Jay continued ot make that kind of record, so there must have been money in it for them. The sixties were perhaps a period of transition in which blues was a viable way to make a good living for many, though the writing may have been on the wall. But some of the borrowings from R&B could be observed in the fifties and I think that was because the people concerned liked it. MG Oh, and blues was always a minority music in the black community in the post war years, anyway. Only 138 blues singles made the R&B charts from 1942 to 1954 while there were 203 jazz records in the same period. Between them, that's slightly less than a third of all entries. It's better than the sixties, there's no doubt, but not that much better.

My granddad had a whole bunch of Dumas in the attic, which I had a great time working my way through in early adolescence. He had a great hero of a couple of them - a fat cleric, whose chief claim to fame was that he could eat a ridiculous quantity of capons at one sitting, washed down with copious quantities of red wine. I would recommend - if you have all the 'Musketeers' series to read them in order. I don't understand why you're saying that Vingt-ans Apres is last in story order - it's not. TMITIM ends with both Porthos and D'Artgnan buying the farm, so you're a little confused I think. Anyways, great series of books, glad to encounter someone else who's read them. You're absolutely right, as I found when I took up Vicomte and read the intro. I think I was confused by the AMazon UK reviews. I put it down and went on with 20 years after. Now most of the way through Vicomte. I'm appreciating how extremely good these books are now. For a guy who wrote HUGE novels, there's almost no padding in them; no long descriptions of scenerey or people; action follows action at what one might describe as a furious pace; the only pauses are for banter; or for laughter at some of Dumas' more extravagant lines - in two books, different characters get into such a rage that, when the object of their rage turns his back on them, they rip their handkerchief to pieces with their teeth!!! Wonderful! MG PS I've only got these five plus Count of Monte Christo and haven't read any others. Which others would you suggest for after I've read these?

So did I SO, how did you find the board, Jim? MG

Not cool - very old fashioned over here. MG

This is the TTK chart, par excellence, of course MG

As I said, I'm not that familiar with Earl Hooker. Thanks for that. I don't know Hound DOg Taylor's work at all. MG Thanks. So, who were the bluesmen who were influenced by Hendrix and Vaughan? MG

From Les' discography If you want an LP with overdubbed backing tracks, I guess you can't do better than Gerald Wislon This morning's vinyl Hank Crawford - Roadhouse symphony - Milestone Teddy Edwards - The inimitable - Xanadu Gene Ammons - Brasswind - Prestige Jug's sound on this isn't all it used to be. MG

Yes, there are several tracks from this on the Singular genius box and I've been thinking about getting the album. MG

A good while back, Allen Lowe and I had a short conversation in some thread I can’t remember in which he said that a lot of bluesmen had been influenced by sixties rock and had said that their work had been tightened up or sharpened up by working with these musicians. I said that I thought the big influence on blues in the sixties was from R&B and soul, cited a few examples (I think) and asked him for more details. The thread went somewhere else, as threads often do, so we never got any farther than this. But I think it’s an interesting topic. I was listening to a twofer LP set of Buddy Guy yesterday and was reminded quite forcibly of this R&B/soul/funk influence, so I thought I’d set down some examples of the impact of popular black music on his and other bluesmen’s work. In one way, it’s a no-brainer to say that bluesmen of the fifties and sixties were alive to the general current of popular black music of the post-war period; they were, after all, part of popular black music of the period. One thing that’s particularly interesting is that there are a fair number of examples of bluesmen recording Soul Jazz tunes, too. Buddy Guy is one of those. He recorded Bobby Timmons’ ‘Moanin’’ for Chess and was with Junior Wells when they recorded ‘Chitlin’s con carne’. But his ‘mainstream’ blues records are full of contemporary dance rhythms, or Johnny Ace ballad progressions; none more explicitly so than ‘Hully gully’ and ‘Bandstand’ but also: ‘I got my eyes on you’; Treasure untold’; ‘Every girl I see’; ‘100 dollar bill’, ‘Watch yourself’; and ‘Slop around’, to name just a few. And ‘When my left eye jumps’ is a slow version of the Roy Milton & the Solid Senders hit ‘Information blues’, recorded in 1949 and making #2 on the R&B chart. Of course, the prime candidates for the influence of contemporary black music on bluesmen are Slim Harpo and Lowell Fulson, whose big hits – ‘Baby scratch my back’ and ‘Tramp’ – were only a couple of well-known examples of their work in this vein. (And Harpo was co-composer of ‘Tramp’, be it noted; I expect he got a lot of royalties from Otis Redding’s recordings of those songs, both of which show the influence of James Brown’s rhythmic developments.) Harpo songs like ‘Rainin’ in my heart’, like some of Buddy Guy’s songs, also show a Johnny Ace influence. Albert Collins, too, included soul jazz in his act; his first LP included Jimmy McGriff’s ‘All about my girl’ and a later live album done in Toronto started off with this number; and Collins later (in 1986) got McGriff to guest on his album ‘Cold snap. He had met McGriff in 1965. There are plenty of soul and funk influences in Collins; ‘Doin’ the sissy’ sounds like it was influenced by the Meters; Wilson Pickett’s ‘”Mustang Sally’ as an integral part of Collins’ act, too. His album ‘Don’t lose your cool’ includes the great Oscar Brown Jr song ‘… But I was cool’, as well as Percy Mayfield’s ‘My mind is trying to leave me’. Chris Foreman, of the Deep Blue Organ Trio is on that album. Starting off as a fine down home blues singer and pianist, Jimmy McCracklin had a huge hit with ‘The walk’, very much a dance number, in 1958. And in the sixties, he was well known for incorporating lots of soul influences in his very successful recordings for Art-Tone and Imperial. Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson is another bluesman who incorporated Soul Jazz and funk ideas very successfully into his music. He and Larry Williams had a hit in 1967 with ‘Mercy, mercy, mercy’ – not as big a hit as Cannonball, but there we are. But Watson became a real black music icon in the seventies, recording funk hit after funk hit for Fantasy and DJM, without ever really moving far away from the blues and becoming an unsung influence on Prince (as well as a prime source for hip hop sampling). Earl King, with whom I’m not too familiar, is another whose work for Blue Thumb in the late sixties shows a lot of soul influence. Another bluesman with a love for R&B trends is Jimmy ‘Fastfingers’ Dawkins. In particular, his Delmark LP, ‘Blisterstring’ includes ‘Chitlin’s con carne’; Smiley Lewis’ ‘Blue Monday’; Chuck Willis’ ‘I feel so bad’, revived a few years before by Ray Charles; and a nice instrumental version of ‘Ode to Billie Joe’. One shouldn’t forget Otis Rush, either. Otis made an album for Cotillion, in about 1969, with some rock musicians – an album so inexpressibly uninteresting that I only listened to half of it, when it came out. But later, much better, albums such as ‘Cold day in Hell’ (the title track being a cover of a track on Bobby Bland’s ABC LP ’The dreamer’) also included the Jimmy Smith number, appropriated by Jimmy McGriff, ‘Motoring along’. Rush was another who recorded Chuck Willis’ ‘I feel so bad’ (for Blind Pig). Even T-Bone Walker was using contemporary black dance rhythms in the recordings he made in the late sixties and early seventies, as albums such as ‘The truth’, ‘Funky town’ and ‘Rare and well done’ show. A lot of this material shows the influence of Lowell Fulson’s ‘Tramp’. (I say nothing about the album Lieber and Stoller produced.) And who could have more of a soul influence in his work than Albert King? Recording with the Stax house bands, King was a consistent hit from 1966 to 1974. Well, I suppose the answer to that is Little Milton who, in my view, perfected the art of melding blues and soul. Everything he did seems to me to have achieved the perfect balance between those two kinds of music. Now, it may well be that my general taste for black pop music led me to focus on those bluesmen who did reflect R&B, soul and funk in their work, at the expense of those who didn’t. I have very little Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller), Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf in my collection, and almost all of that early stuff, though I do have my daughter’s copy of Muddy’s 12 inch EP of ‘Mannish boy’ and ‘Hoochie coochie man’, which was a very big hit here when it was used for a Levi’s Jean advert. That was produced by Johnny Winter and, I just listened to it, is terribly hard; I couldn’t listen to more than a minute or two of each cut. There’s little doubt in my mind, therefore, that my historical appreciation of this issue is coloured by my personal taste. So it would be pretty helpful to me to know which bluesmen were influenced by rock and, in particular, which recordings or albums give strong evidence of this (if only so I can avoid buying them by mistake). MG

Buddy guy - Chicago golden years - Chess (Vogue France) MG