Big Beat Steve

Came on sort of late (2006?), discovered org more or less at the same time as AAJ but after a spell of hanging out on both I found this site here much more pleasant, lively and informative ... So I can only join in with the others ... Thanks for the forum and for all the stimulating and informative discussions on matters music! Hope things will continue that way ...

Suggested reading on this subject: "The Restless Generation - How rock music changed the face of 1950s Britain" by Pete Frame (Rogan House) The reasons behind the popularity of trad jazz as one important aspect of the YOUTH's pop music (as opposed to mainstream popular music churned out by the established powers in music business) of the day and its links with what became rock'n'roll and the British blues scene of the early 60s are described vividly and in detail here.

Yeah, "I'm Going Home" on "Recorded Live" is a killer track . Almost my #1 reason for going for that album, though the rest ain't bad at all either. But considering tha musical context of that period of the 70s, this tune showed that some still could do some straight ahead kick-ass stuff that really MOVES. RIP.

Great first-hand reminiscences, MG! And could it be that we are about the same age, freelancer? When I started listening consicously to radio (must have been in early 1974) I was 14 but somehow most of what was current and in the charts or what was "the thing to listen to" among my age peers never clicked with me. Time and again I've tried to remember how it came about that the then-current pop on the hit parades or even all that hard rock etc. never caught my ear but I really cannot recall. Pop fare on the charts must have sounded inspid to me (disco was total no-no anyway and total anathema to my developing tastes in music by black artists from Day One) whereas hard rock, prog rock (or whatever) appeared over the top and a bit like overamplified noise (with a few exceptions, see below). I guess music was to be no-frills and straight to the bone for me because what immediately held me spellbound, OTOH, was 50s rock'n'roll on the one hand (Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and above all Eddie Cochran were early r'n'r favorites) and jazz from "dixieland" (o.k., beyond the inevitable George Lewis' "Ice Cream" which was an early ear-catcher, a lot of it would qualify as "classic jazz") to swing (big bands and beyond) as well as whatever vintage blues sounds radio had to offer. Luckily radio had a few good shows where you'd learn about a lot of jazz and blues artists in a short time. Another early influence was a weekly history of country music on AFN that introduced me to a lot from Hank Williams to oldtime string bands. Soon after I started buying records in the spring of 1975 (my first two records ever bought were LPs by Duane Eddy and Johnny & The Hurricanes , certainly due to radio oldies show exposure), jazz and blues records followed, and reading on music matters must have helped a lot, particularly Joachim Ernst Berendt's Jazz Book. Within a year or so this cautiously led me to explore Diz and Bird of 1945, and upon listening through that entire Prestige twofer it sounded quite logical to me from the start (contrary to my initial fears). So things went on from there ... I must unconsciously have been pigeonholing certain things,though, because while I did pick up blues records by John Lee Hooker, Lightnin Hopkins or Elmore James or even Ma Rainey and Robert Johnson pretty early on (at 16 or 17), for some time I didn't quite know what to make of R&B and Jump Blues acts such as late 40s/50s Louis Jordan or Buddy Johnson. File them under swing or not? Took me a while to appreciate this sort of "crossover". I guess most of my age peers considered my music tastes quite oddball, and IIRC except for the perennial classics of 60s British bands (such as the Beatles and Stones) Ten Years After were almost the only common ground (somehow their blues rock and ability to rock & roll if called upon - the Recorded LIve album is one that's still a keeper - did manage to grab me). And when it came ot the Moody Blues, for example, I preferred to stick with their (just-reissued at the time) first Decca LP which appealed much more than their later psychedelic affairs. And I remember that while I never was that impressed with those hard rock guitarist heroes of the 70s, after listening to the likes of Elmore James on record or to Big Joe WIlliams on stage in 1977 I figured to myself that anything beyond the gutsy essentials of blues guitarists like them was likely to be just gimmicks .. Ah well, youthful folly and a lost cause for mainstream stuff from the start, I fear ...

Another series of "smaller" and quite affordable box sets that would provide a good overview of a wide range of artists (many quite worthy of attention but not credited with comprehensive reissues of their own elsewhere) is on the U.K. FANTASTIC VOYAGE label. The "Let Me Tell You About The Blues" series of 3-CD sets looks like quite a good point of departure for "startups" in this field. They have regional compilations on New Orleans, Nashville, Detroit, Atlanta, West Coast, Texas, new York, Memphis and Chicago: http://www.fantasticvoyagemusic.com/genre/blues/ But note that they are partly pre-war, partly post-war (some more so, some less). Take your pick ...

Hey, please cut a non-native speaker of the English language some slack, will ya? (Or write better yourself in a language that is foreign to you ;)) No doubt he meant to say "underLine". Isn't it so, Mike?

Uh oh ... this is going to be a long, long list if you really want to get into details. Starting with Satch (of course), and even before .. carrying on through the Harlem Hamfats and their ilk, plus danceable big bands such as Chick Webb, Andy Kirk, Erskine Hawkins, Lucky Millinder, Buddy Johnson, etc. etc., Louis Jordan of course, Louis Prima (he had done much more before his Capitol/Vegas days), small groups such as Leo Watson's groups, The Cats & The Fiddle, Slim Gaillard (Slim & Slam and well beyond), yes, and bebop can be fun and uplifting too, starting with Dizzy (and I for one find a lot of early Gene Ammons quite exuberant too), and a lot of R&B too (examples to numerous to mention), and so on. As for more recent acts, I might mention certain less-punkish and jazzier neo-swing acts of the 90s but that might only get me into the line of fire with purists (who insist on jazz as serious sit-down concert hall music) so I'll pass for now ... Honestly, the premise of such a query about jazz might be a bit out of focus if you approach jazz from the angle of a listener who's been weaned on hard bop of the "Angry Young Men" faction (and onwards into more recent decades) and understands this to be what jazz is ALL about. True, hard bo and post bop are part of the many-faceted aspects of jazz. in fact the core of jazz joyful as it was (and is again these days in certain subcultures) is intended above all as DANCING music (which doesn't usually take place in the form of slow fox steps so is bound to be rather joyful).

Interesting to see what hapens if they really try to revive most of the 765 items, and possibly a good opportunity to act fast and grab the ones you missed the first time around and realize NOw that yu want them. BUT - any word on where they will be available except from Worlds Records? Because it does sound odd to start such an ambitious project if you are all set on closing down. And it might not the that worthwhile cost-wise for non-US buyers to have to order them from the US.

By coincidence a couple of days ago I received a recent auction win - all 1964 issues of the Swedish jazz mag Orkester Journalen, and the March issue happens to have a (three-star) review of this record: Katie Bell Nubin's voice is well-suited to the gospel style. The orchestra is said to be under the direction of Dizzy Gillespie but he can be heard only in a scant few tracks and has a more prominent role only in Where's Adam and Come Over Here which thanks to his efforts turn out to be the best on this record. Gillespie is all himself here but the other orchestra members appear to be restrained so their playing lacks the personal touch. Katie Bell is no great singer, at any rate not in the class of her daughter Sister Rosetta Tharpe, but she presents her music competently. A nice and engaging record. Opinions do differ, as you can see.

Judging by his liner notes alone, I agree he is excellent. As for his book writing, did he ever do something corresponding to "Country Music Originals - The Legends And The Lost" (which I for one find really excellent) on the BLUES?

I would have included both of these as well but on the one hand I understand the book by Alan Lomax (which I found very interesting) is seen critically by some who have a problem with the persona of Alan Lomax as such. And "The Story of The Blues" was an excellent, one-of-a-kind book for a very long time (I remember I borrowed our local "Amerika Haus" library copy countless times in the mid-to late 70s and early 80s) but I am not sure whether it is still that easily available. But if you can pick up a secondhand copy at a nice price -- grab it and use it as a history source book along with "Nothing But The Blues" They complement each other well.

I fully agree with Paul Secor's recommendation of the Penguin guide and the discographies for reference (am not familiar with the other bios he mentions so cannot comment no them). For a general history of the blues that gives you the overall picture both with excellent and vivid (and therefore not overly scholarly) texts as well as great illustrations, I strongly recommend "Nothing But The Blues" by Lawrence Cohn (Abbeville Press). As I assume you lean towards the older forms of the blues the following books may be of interest: - "In Search of the Blues" by Marybeth Hamilton - "Escaping the Delta - Robert Johnson and the Invention nof the Blues" by Elijah Wald (I bought it upon recommendations on this board and the consensus seems to be that this book is less controversial on this complicated subject matter than other well-known books on Robert Johnson) - "Screening the Blues - Aspects of the Blues Tradition" by Paul Oliver (looking at the topics of the blues through its lyrics) - "Voyage au pays du blues - Land of the Blues" (bilingual French/English) by Jacqes Demetre and Marcel Chauvard (covering a trip by two French blues enthusiasts to the key places of the blues in the USA of 1959 - puslished in book form quite a few years ago but should still be available through the website of the French blues mag "Soul Bag").

:g

A seminal figure and cult personality among German 60s music fans, even beyond Beatlemaniacs. Though the packaging of his Hamburg recordings for reissue at times led buyers to believe that certain recordings were with Beatles backing when in fact they weren't (No, not My Bonne and Ain't She Sweet- this one with Lenn on on vocal - , that WAS the Beatles). The LA Times obit, incidentally, is also wrong about the "Beat Brothers" moniker, that WASN'T the Beatles, only Tony Sheridan's recordings with that backing group are often lumped in with the Beatles recordings in reissues (My point ...) RIP

Just in case anybody's interested: This is also available as a VINYL 2-LP set. Not listed on amazon (at least not on amazon.de) but where I picked it up (yeah, at a real brick-and-mortar record store - one of the last ones locally) it wasn't that much more expensive than the CD at the "going" Amazon rate + shipping. And of course this format allows the booklet to be presented much better.

I wouldn't say so: 1) You've got an AWFUL LOT of leeway in what would be "acceptable" in English one way or another. Or so it seems to me anyway. I work with the English language day in, day out, and quite often I have a hunch this or that phrase or wording that crosses my mind just doesn't sound right to me (that "how" thing above on the face of it would have sounded a bit too "German", i.e. translated verbatim, to me too, BTW, and I'd have opted for one of the two other versions as well). But after googling I've often found these "suspicious" phrases actually are in frequent use, and not even primarily on shoddily written blogs or forums or awkwardly translated sites only but on relatively "respectable" genuine English-language sites). 2) The problem with French as used by native speakers in writing does not look like a problem of "past decades" to me. I'd say written French is mistreated and abused TERRIBLY these days by an awful lot of "native speakers" (and writers). The ability of writing that language correctly as a "native speaker" seems to be going down, down and yet further down all the time. O.K,, many English native speakers seem to be incapable of differentiating between "principle" and "principal" (and the like, for example), but among the French? Ugh ... sometimes it's really garish what you read on forums, etc. This problem is getting pretty bad these days with German too and you have a feeling many schools spawn a generation of semi-illiterates as far as their writing skills go, but French seems to be even harder hit. Small wonder ... I've been told by friends in France that from a certain level in school the teachers aren't even supposed to correct any of the faults of their pupils anymore in their written tests (and of course are not to downgrade them for their faults either).

Boone's Jumping Jacks made 4 tracks on that recording session, but according to Bruyninckx this was the only session they ever did. You can listen to all 4 of them on HEP CD 1066, "Sounds of Harlem Vol. 2". And it is indeed "our" Buster Smith (who came up with the original arrangement of One O'Clock Jump).

Could it really be that over here the press and newspeople are faster? We've had obits both online as well as in today's local daily newspaper (and IIRC even yesterday's special Sunday edition ran a brief obit). So ...??

His Arhoolie, Folklyric and Old Timey LPs (those comparatively few that I was able to aford at the time) helped enormously to expand my musical horizons and awareness of a lot of what was out there in Hillbilly, Western Swing, R&B, Cajun and Norteno music in my early collecting days in the late 70s. And browsing through the Arhoolie catalog always was a revelation (though in many cases it would be years before I'd get my hands on certain items).

Thanks for the info! Seems to be another piece of legislation that was really badly executed. The practice of tearing off front covers for those printed items returned as remainders was practiced here at the newsagents since the 60s when they returned unsold magazines (monthly, weekly etc.) after their "display until" date had passed but I think it is no longer done that way. Given the short "shelf display life" of books imposed by this taxation of inventories, it is amazing there still are so many niche books published (and selling, aparently) in the US anyway. Internet-based distribution and sales channels seem to be a good thing in this case after all ...

Yes, excellent site and information. Thanks!

Quite something else. 60s (and onwards) Chicano rock, to sum it up briefly. An odd mixture of styles IMO. Almost as odd as the band name. Would probably strike you, as someone from Britain as a bit odd too that such a group (in PROPER English) would call themselves "You Midniters", isn't it? BTW, Wikipedia says that this "Thee" was indeed intended to avoid confusion with the Ballard group. But all in all "Da Midniters" maybe might have been more like it.

Thanks for that link! That brings back memories even to me who only caught the later period (1992 to 2000) at Shaftesbury Avenue. Nice to be able to put names to faces of those whom I encountered regularly at the counter when making my purchases there. Apart from Ray (whom I did indeed picture to be the boss), I remember dealing with Glyn Callingham and Mike Doyle (who at one occasion went out of his way to give me the 10% discount on the purchases I had made, though I made my purchases in 2 instalments (visits) durnig the day) most often during my visits. If In had known I'd regularly bump into Glyn Callingham there I'd probably have brought my California Cool cover art book for him to sign. That stock of US 78rpm orignals on Savoy, Dee Gee etc. that according to that blog came from Chris Barber as early as 1974 must have lasted an awfully long time. I remember buying several mint Savoys, Dee Gees and Bops as late as 1998 or 1999 there in the basement Blues & Roots store where a separate "Special Offer" bin had set up for them. Wish I had picked more now, but i limited myself to those where I was quite sure they had not been reissued on thoese Savoy twofers. Don't remember seeing them there during my preceding visits though. The Blues and Roots section downstairs sometimes held rather odd items (judging by the standard so the jazz fraternity up there). In the late 90s I once did a London shopping spree with a girlfriend who of course was pressed into coming along when I checked out Ray's. There she picked an LP compilation of late 50s/early 60s black rock'n'roll (one of those outright bootleg LP series that in the 90s were regularly turned out by London DJs of the Rockin' scene and normally were sold only at record stalls during concerts, festivals etc.). Of course she wanted to get an overall impression of what this particular volume was about so asked to listen in. I think Ray and his staff lasted for about one half each of two songs before Ray pulled it off with disgusted looks on his face (but he did make a sale )...

Well, to give you an example, one 40s R&B artist who comes to mind is BILL JOHNSON (vocals/sax) who recorded a fair amount of tracks with his band (Bill Johnson & His Musical Notes) for RCA Victor in 1947 (plus a few for various indies before and after) - enough to fill one CD to the brim (and possibly more). It's a relatively nondescript artist name (that doesn't immediately remain etched in your memory) for sure, but I'd say he'd rank pretty well alongside Chris Powell, Bil Samuels, Felix Gross or Marvin Johnson etc. in the above mentioned "diehard collectors'" reissue series. And if he managed to wax 20 or more tracks for a major at that time he cannot have been a total flash in the pan. I've only come across the occasional track by him on R&B/Jump Blues compilations and liked them but am not aware of any comprehensive reissues of his recorded output (though I'll be glad to be proven wrong ).

I was wondering that myself, but some of their latter releases were pretty obscure. Maybe they've run out of good material? MG Good point. But if you combine their Blues & Rhythm series with the reissue series on BLUE MOON you've got pretty good coverage of those who aren't already covered by major R&B reissues/reissue labels elsewhere. Though I agree that some gaps seem to remain wherever you look and some artists (who probably weren't THAT obscure back then) seem to be passed by everywhere.