Today is the birthday of Walter Horton, one of the musicians who had the biggest influence on me. Walter grew up in Horn Lake, Mississippi and by the time he was a teenager he had moved a few miles north to Memphis. His childhood friend, bluesman Johnny Shines, told writer Peter Guralnick about meeting Horton when they were both youngsters in Mississippi:
“Walter would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, he’d blow in tin cans, and he’d get sounds out of these things. You see, this harmonica blowing is really a mark for Walter, it’s not something he picked up—he was born to do it. And he’s gonna do that. I believe he’d crack tomorrow with a harp in his hand and he’d keep it in his hand. And probably you could never take that harp away from him.”
If you ever heard Horton blow the harp, you would have no problem believing that he could get music out of a tin can. Walter had a unique, very melodic approach to the blues harp that showed the strong influence of the amazing collection of great jug band harmonica players like Noah Lewis and Will Shade who were active in Memphis in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Walter claimed to have recorded with the Memphis Jug Band when he was nine years old; he definitely backed Little Buddy Doyle on that singer’s 1939 recordings. He worked outside of music through most of the 1940s, but in 1952 legendary producer Sam Phillips recorded several sides for Sun Records with Horton. One of them, “Easy,” is a bona fide blues harp masterpiece.
Horton moved to Chicago not long after and quickly became top harp man in a city loaded with harmonica players. Horton made many brilliant recordings of his own and contributed stellar harmonica work to sessions with Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk, among others.
When I was going to college in NYC, I hitchhiked up to Boston several times to see Horton play at Joe’s Place, where he was backed up by Johnny Nicholas and his great band. Those shows were a total revelation to me—Horton’s sound was huge and gorgeous, and he greatly expanded my notion of what was possible on the harmonica. I also able to spend time with Walter at his table between sets. Walter was by nature a shy person, but after a few drinks he would let out with all kinds of outrageous statements. He gave me his address in Chicago and told me the amazing experience that would be mine if I ever showed up for a lesson. “I got a motherf----n’ x-ray machine, man, and I will slap that f----r up against my face and you will see EVERYTHING.” I did a show with him at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle and he invited me to join him onstage for his last set, which no doubt will always stand as my most amazing musical experience. Walter was really something else.
Muddy Waters
MMuddy Waters turns 104 today.
The standard story behind the blues is that it was the acoustic folk music of the black field hands in Mississippi delta—with strong African and gospel antecedents—that spread from there to Memphis and Helena and St. Louis and then to Chicago, where southern-born black musicians created an urbanized version of the blues that served as the basis for rock and roll.
That’s all accurate. It also describes Muddy Water’s life journey.
He was born on a Mississippi plantation and raised by his grandmother, who called him “Muddy” because of his childhood habit of playing in the creek. He sang in church and played the harmonica. He grew to manhood and became a field hand on the Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, where he fell under the spell of local bluesmen Charley Patton and Son House. Muddy was sharp and he was ambitious, and he soon had a profitable sideline outside of his field work selling moonshine and turning his cabin into the local juke joint and gambling house on the weekends.
He was restless, too. He visited Memphis and St. Louis, but always returned. Folkorist Alan Lomax recorded Muddy at his cabin in 1941 and 1942. He paid Muddy $10 a side and sent him two copies of a 78 record. When Muddy heard his own voice and guitar on the local jukebox, he was galvanized. “I just played it and played it and said, 'I can do it, I can do it.'" [When his plantation boss refused to give Waters a raise from 22-1/2 cents an hour to 27-1/2 cents, Muddy said goodbye to his grandmother and caught the train to Chicago, where a sister lived.
Within five years he was a mainstay of the Chicago blues scene and had formed a band—with Jimmy Rogers on guitar, Baby Face Leroy on drums, and Little Walter Jacobs on harp—that was perfecting an amplified, urban update of the patterns that Muddy had mastered as a young man. In 1948 Muddy recorded a tune for Aristocrat Records that Alan Lomax had waxed on him seven years earlier, but this time Waters’ slide guitar was amplified and Big Crawford added a loping acoustic bass part. “I Can’t Be Satisfied” was a surprise, monster hit. Aristocrat changed its name to Chess Records, and the Chicago blues sound was born.
Muddy is almost everyone’s favorite bluesman. He had incredible nuance and subtlety in his singing and playing, he carried himself onstage with profound authority, he assembled stellar bands, and his music had intensity. “His stuff had pep,” is how Willie Dixon put it. Waters’ legacy is a unique, soulful music that bridged the fields and the city and set the standard that, for better and sometimes worse, inspired an entire generation of rock and roll musicians.
Muddy Waters wasn’t just a bluesman. He literally WAS the blues.
Emmylou
Emmylou Harris turned 70 today. Most people discovered Gram Parsons through Emmylou Harris, but I discovered Emmylou Harris through Gram Parsons. I was lucky enough to see Gram and the Flying Burrito Brothers live four times when I was in high school in Seattle. I was in college in NYC when Gram’s first solo album, “GP,” came out, and that’s how I first heard the otherwordly, shimmering voice of Emmylou Harris.
I saw them both together a few months later at Max’s Kansas City. The show was basically a mess. Gram was shaky, the band was weak, and the material leaned toward vintage rock and roll tunes, which was not exactly Parsons’ forte. Emmylou (this was her first tour) sang great but looked spooked. There was a pause in the program to get a guitar set up so that Dave Mason could sit in, and Gram and Emmylou stepped up with just Gram’s acoustic and sang “The Devil’s Jeweled Crown.” Those few minutes were unforgettable.
A couple of years later I was back in Seattle and Emmylou brought her phenomenal Hot Band to town. What a transformation. Harris was now a totally confident performer and bandleader who had fashioned a unique sound and repertoire for herself. She’s been a pillar of soulfulness and integrity on the country scene for over forty years now and has helped the careers of countless artists. I’ve always especially loved this gorgeous tune, which Harris wrote as a tribute to Gram Parsons.
Like ringin' a bell
He was a young hairdresser and part-ime musician from St. Louis on vacation in Chicago when in 1955 Chuck Berry chatted up one of his heroes, Muddy Waters, in a club. Waters told Berry about Leonard Chess and his record label. There was an audition and then a session at which Berry recorded an original blues, "Wee Wee Hours." For a flip side, Berry pulled out a mock hillbilly rave up, "Maybelline," inspired by Bob Wills' "Ida Red," and the rest is rock and roll history. Berry's good looks and duck-walking showmanship helped break down the color barrier and make the guitar the axe of choice for young rockers. One of the greatest pop songwriters of all time, Berry was rock and roll's most marvelous storyteller and the inspiration for Bob Dylan and the other musical wordsmiths of the '60s. RIP
James Cotton
I was seventeen the night I walked up the ramps at Eagles Auditorium in downtown Seattle to catch the James Cotton Blues Band. This was the (justifiably) legendary early Cotton band, with Luther Tucker on guitar, Francis Clay on drums, Alberto Gianquinto on piano, and Bobby Anderson on bass. I had been playing the trumpet in school bands for seven years, but in terms of live music, I was green, with a pair of fresh ears that were wide open. Looking back, I can’t believe how lucky I was to walk into that show at such a tender age when I was in no way prepared for the experience.
Cotton was only in his mid-thirties then, but he already had done a lifetime of gigs. Born in Tunica, Mississippi, Cotton moved in with Rice (Sonny Boy Williamson) Miller at the age of nine (!), and he inherited Miller’s band six years later when Miller moved to Chicago. He spent a half dozen years as part of the thriving Memphis blues scene, along with Howlin’ Wolf, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker and B.B. King, and he made his first recordings there for Sun Records. Then came a twelve-year stint with Muddy Waters. Cotton developed into not only a master harp player, but a truly great singer and showman as well. He was the whole package.
The night I saw him, Cotton had just recently formed his own band and gone out on his own. The young James was a fountain of energy onstage, pacing relentlessly back and forth throughout the entire set. Cotton somehow pulled off “The Creeper,” his complex, tour de force harp instrumental, while doing somersaults. He was the first performer I saw do the sixty-foot-cord stunt, and when he walked right past me popping that harp in and out of his mouth, I was a goner.
That showmanship and physicality ensured that I would never forget that Eagles show, but it was Cotton’s harp sound that changed my life. I had never heard amplified harp before. My trumpet playing had made me a confirmed wind-instrument player, and I did know a few things about tone, breath control, and phrasing, but I had never heard a sound like the one Cotton got out of those Marine Bands. In the middle of the show Cotton stepped on the reverb pedal and served up an impossibly deep slow blues in the echo chamber, a number he recorded as “Blues In My Sleep.” It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my young life. It made me literally weak in the knees, and it left me determined to get on the trail to track it down. I went to the music store the next day and bought a C Marine Band, and I’ve been trying, for the most part fruitlessly, to figure out Cotton’s magical sound ever since.
I got to see him many, many times in a multitude of settings, cities, and venues. I got to open for him on a few occasions, and I was able to spend some time in his presence and to hear some of his stories. Such a privilege. I once opened for him at the Backstage in Seattle. I was excited not only because I was on the bill with me hero, but because Luther Tucker had rejoined James this tour of the West Coast. I got to hear them recreate some of that magic that whipped me so badly that night at Eagles Auditorium. That night, talking in the “dressing room” between sets I asked James if he’d do me a favor and let me get a photo of the two of us. Cotton was relaxing on a couch, and he good naturedly said “Sure, but I ain’t gettin’ up off of this damn sofa to do it.” So I slid in next to him and made myself comfortable, too.
A few years back tapes of a live gig in Montreal by the same Cotton band I heard that night at Eagles were issued on a pair of CDs. I love those recordings because when I put them on I’m instantly right back there, listening with fresh ears. In a few minutes, after I get some dinner, I’ll be settling down in another couch to listen to them again. Thanks for the energy, the soulfulness, and that beautiful sound, James.
Lightnin'
Today is the birthday of Lightnin’ Hopkins. There was, or is, no deeper bluesman. An inspired and unique guitarist, a mesmerizing singer, a master showman with off-the-charts charisma. and a born troubadour who sang brilliantly about whatever was happening to him in that instant.
The first time I saw him was many years ago in NYC. He was opening for Muddy Waters. Lightnin’ was backed by a game bass player who skillfully followed Hopkins’ free-form chord changes. Lightnin’ was dressed to the nines in a gorgeous, dark-blue pinstripe suit, alligator shoes, and shades. His marcelled hair shone blue in the stage lights. Lightnin’ was totally on fire that night. From the first note he had the audience hypnotized. After about forty-five minutes he launched his set into the stratosphere with one of his patented, monster boogie grooves in E. It was insane. When he finished the crowd leaped to their feet and applauded thunderously. Lightnin’ walked off the stage and a timorous hippie emcee walked up to the microphone and tried to get the crowd’s attention. After about five solid minutes the ovation began to subside, and the emcee gave out with some pathetic statement along the lines of “Wasn’t Lightnin’ great? We’d love to have him play longer, but we only have the hall until midnight (?) and we have to get the great Muddy Waters out here.”
Just as the disappointed, muttering crowd began to finally quiet and sit back down, Lightnin’, the cagey old veteran, poked his head out from behind the stage curtain and waved at the crowd. The poor emcee never saw this; Hopkins was behind him. All the ponytailed master of ceremonies knew was that for some unknown reason the audience had suddenly vaulted upright again and was screaming hoarsely for Lightnin’. He had no choice but to bring Hopkins out again, and Lightnin’ made the most of it, playing twenty more incendiary minutes. Muddy seemed to enjoy it as much if not more as we did. He invited Lightnin’ onstage during his set and the two blues legends sang a beautiful version of “Rocky Mountain Blues” together. Giants walked the earth in those days.
"Shoot low, sheriff!"
, Today marks the birthday of Bob Wills, one of the great American bandleaders and a true original in a music business full of unique wildmen. Wills was born into a family of cotton farmers and champion fiddlers and was profoundly influenced by the blues sung by black field hands. He told one interviewer that he had ridden fifty miles on horseback, just to hear Bessie Smith sing. “She was the greatest thing I ever heard.” Wills started out playing fiddle in local bands and within a decade he was leading a large, phenomenally popular dance band based in Tulsa, Oklahoma—Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, the group that invented “western swing” by coupling traditional fiddle music and blues to the swing rhythms of the big bands of the 1930s. During World War II, Bob drew bigger crowds than Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. An incomparable number of world-class musicians spent time in the Texas Playboys, including steel guitarist Leon McCauliffe, guitarists Eldon Shamblin (an early proponent of the electric guitar) and Junior Barnard, and the great vocalist Tommy Duncan. Bob was also a movie star, appearing in countless westerns.
Bob was a born entertainer who threw himself into the music, often punctuating his records with cries of “Aaaahhhhhh” and vocal interjections like “Shoot low, Sheriff—I think she’s ridin’ a Shetland!” When Bob and his boys got their first break, a recording session with Brunswick, the band cut a take of their first number and the producer took Bob aside to let him know that the band sounded great but that he needed to cut out the “yelling.” Bob turned to the band, told them “Pack up, boys, we’re going home” and walked out of the session. Wills was a hard drinker with a hot temper who was married six times (three times in a single year).
It would be hard to name an American musician who had a bigger influence than Bob Wills. His tune “San Antonio Rose” is an oft-recorded standard piece of Americana. Merle Haggard (a masterful interpreter of Bob’s music), Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings all revered Wills. Fats Domino and Chuck Berry were huge fans and were heavily influenced by him. Not many people are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Bob Wills deserves his place in each one of them.
Johnny Cash
Happy birthday to Johnny Cash. As a nation of immigrants (the Cashes came from Scotland), America has an impossibly rich trove of folk music, and it never had a better friend or a more masterful interpreter than the Man in Black.
Barrelhouse Chuck
Barrelhouse Chuck Goering passed away yesterday. I met Chuck when he was still a teenager in Seattle. He had a band called Blue Lights and his plan even then was to move to Chicago and become a great blues piano player. Well, Chuck certainly realized his dream. He relocated to the Windy City and spent years learning from and befriending blues piano titans like Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery, Blind John Davis, and Pinetop Perkins. Chuck took care of Little Brother Montgomery in his last years. Chuck’s own career took off, and he became the in-demand piano player for shows and recordings for likes of Kim Wilson and other blues luminaries. I had some great times with Chuck. Once when he came to Seattle with Kim Wilson he asked me to take him to the Experience Music Project museum. Turned out Chuck was a huge Hendrix fan, and he wanted to see the exhibit there on Jimi. He really had a ball. That’s what I will remember about Chuck—his infectious enthusiasm and passion, and his positive energy. We’ve lost a huge talent and a great human being with his passing.
