By Henry Sloan
May 18, 2012 in Blog, Ridin' Along in my Automobile
Hello again, Henry Sloan here with the second blog in the ‘Ridin’ Along in My Automobile’ series. Following on from the Ike Turner-inspired first blog we take a look at another car-related song; ‘Crosstown Traffic’ by Jimi Hendrix
. The main reason many consider Ike and Jackie Brenston’s ‘Rocket 88’ the first Rock ‘n’ Roll song was the use of feedback and it was Jimi’s use of said technique that caught the ire of Ike whilst the young south paw was honing his chops in Ike and Tina’s group on the ‘chitlin circuit’ and resulted in his dismissal from the band.
Only a few years after his departure from the Turners, Hendrix was a bona fide star in his own right and by 1968 was a worldwide sensation. It was in this year that Hendrix finally finished work on his long-awaited third album, ‘Electric Ladyland’. The record was a sprawling 4 side affair wherein Jimi had began to see the studio as an instrument itself and all of this experimentation made the album one of the most groundbreaking of the era.
The first single to be released from the album was Hendrix’s legendary cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’
, which featured 12-string guitar accompaniment by Dave Mason of Traffic. Mason also contributed backing vocals to the second single from the album, ‘Crosstown Traffic’. The song finds Jimi comparing his problems with a woman to getting through traffic and he also uses automobile metaphors for sexual innuendo, a Blues tradition that can be traced back to the 1920s.
Dave Mason’s fellow Traffic band mate Steve Winwood also appeared on ‘Electric Ladyland’, contributing organ to the drawn-out Blues jam ‘Voodoo Chile’
which Jimi based on Muddy Waters’ ‘Rollin’ Stone’
; a song which provided a certain English Rock ‘n’ Roll band with their name. The Stones were massively influenced by Chuck Berry in their early days and covered many of his songs including one of his automobile numbers, ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, a line of which The Beatles borrowed for ‘Come Together’ – The Beatles in which they also name-checked Muddy Waters!
‘Come Together’ – The Beatles featured prominently in the 1993 film ‘A Bronx Tale’ which was the directorial debut of Robert De Niro, star of one of the greatest car-related movies of all time, Martin Scorcese’s ‘Taxi Driver’. ‘Taxi Driver’ was the second of a sequence of eight films that Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese collaborated on, culminating in 1995’s ‘Casino’
which featured the song ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals. The song was the first taste of success for The Animals and many consider it the first Folk-Rock hit. The band split up in August 1966 and on their final tour, which found them in America, bassist Chas Chandler spotted a young guitar player who he would bring back to London and manage… Jimi Hendrix.
HS
By Henry Sloan
April 24, 2012 in Blog, Uncle Archie's Archive
Henry Sloan here again, I hope you folks enjoyed the first instalments of the ‘Ridin’ Along in My Automobile’ and ‘The First Pickle Out of the Jar’ blogs. This week I’ll be writing the first in the series of my ‘Uncle Archie’s Archive’ blogs. Not too long ago a distant uncle of mine named Archie sadly shuffled off of this mortal coil and, knowing I was a fan of archaic music, kindly left me a selection of 78 rpm records and a small portable player on which to spin ‘em.
I had heard of some of the artists but others were more obscure and it was at this point I thought that you, dear reader, might enjoy holding my hand as I discovered these new artists and their musical worlds. Uncle Archie was obviously a fan of Sister Rosetta Tharpe as there are quite a few of her records here, the same goes for Big Bill Broonzy. I have heard of these artists and some others in the pile, Bob Wills and Little Walter for instance, but many are a mystery so I will start with the first enigma that I’ve come across; Washboard Sam & His Washboard Band.
Washboard Sam: Half-brother of Big Bill Broonzy who worked on songs that Bob Dylan would cover on his debut
The Washboard Sam 78 that Archie left me is on the RCA Victor label and the A-side is ‘Diggin’ My Potatoes’ with the flip being ‘Back Door Blues’. After a bit of ferreting about I found the recording details and it would seem that the two songs on this RCA Victor release were originally recorded and put out by the original Chicago superpower record label Bluebird, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. They were recorded a few years apart and were originally released separately but being, as my research tells me, two of Sam’s biggest releases, they were later put together on this 78 to presumably be marketed like a very mini greatest hits package!
‘Diggin’ My Potatoes’ was recorded in Chicago on Monday 15th May 1939, with Buster Bennett on alto sax, Ransom Knowling on sub-bass, Joshua Altheimer on piano, and Washboard Sam on washboard and vocals. The guitar player on this session was none other than the aforementioned Big Bill Broonzy who was something of a Mr. Fix-It for Bluebird and other Chicago labels and played on tonnes of sessions. ‘Back Door Blues’ was recorded in Aurora, Illinois, (Yes…the same Aurora where Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar live!) and Big Bill provides the guitar again with Arnett Nelson on clarinet, the rest of the band are unknown.
Curtis Jones: originator of the excellent 'Highway 51 Blues' which was one of the highlights of Bob Dylan's debut
So a quick search tells me that Washboard Sam’s real name was Robert Brown and he was more than just a musical associate of Big Bill Broonzy; he was actually his half brother. Sam was one of the most popular recording artists of the early Chicago, Bluebird-dominated, scene and as well as recording as a featured performer he also did session work for many Blues greats including Broonzy, Yank Rachell, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Memphis Slim, Jazz Gillum, Curtis Jones, Bumble Bee Slim, and many more, contributing to important songs such as ‘Highway 51 Blues’ by Curtis Jones, which would later be covered by Bob Dylan on his debut album.
As I look down the list of names of those he accompanied on record there’s one that stands out; the legendary Bukka White. I have been a fan of Bukka White for over 20 years yet I never knew it was Sam who’d been Bukka’s accompanist on his legendary 1940 session for Victor Records. This session is worth a digression, probably a complete blog on its own to be honest, as many, this writer included, consider it the last of the great Mississippi Delta Country Blues sessions.
Bukka White: Mississippi Blues legend who influenced Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Buckley and many more
Bukka had begun his recording career 10 years earlier but initial sales didn’t warrant further work and the Great Depression saw to it that Bukka didn’t see the inside of a studio again until 1937 when he was invited by Big Bill Broonzy to Chicago. At the time of Bill’s request Bukka was awaiting trial for shooting a man and he jumped bail to get to Chicago to record two sides before, as legend would have it, the sheriff burst in the studio and took him back to Mississippi where he spent three years in the notorious state prison, Parchman Farm. One of the songs he cut before the fuzz caught up with him was the seminal ‘Shake ‘Em On Down’, later to be covered by Led Zeppelin on their third album, and it was released whilst Bukka was incarcerated and became a hit. When he was released he was immediately asked by famed record man Lester Melrose to head back to Chicago to build on this success, this time recording for Vocalion Records.
Bukka had no new songs so was sent to a hotel to work up some material and quickly came up with a total of 12 new songs, every one of them a Delta masterpiece. Parchman Farm had obviously scarred Bukka and his lamentations on his time there permeate many of the songs from the session. His poetic lyrics and gorgeous guitar work add layers of gravitas that sets him apart from many of his contemporaries; where most Blues artists were concerned with what was happening to them, Bukka, in songs such as ‘Parchman Farm Blues’, was more worried about how his stretch was affecting his loved ones. ‘When Can I Change My Clothes’ is one of the greatest and most poignant of the many Blues songs written about prison.
In what seems like a strange move, given the nature of the lyrical content, Melrose decided that Bukka needed some element of the upbeat sound, pioneered by Bluebird, that was so popular in Chicago and so he recruited Washboard Sam to do his thing. Although the guitar/washboard combination certainly does swing on some selections it’s on the slower more mournful pieces, in my opinion, that Sam’s accompaniment really comes to the fore with his simple brushing of the washboard complimenting Bukka’s highly percussive style perfectly, giving the songs a monotonous hypnotic vibe that echoes the regimentation and repetition of prison life. One of the songs recorded at the sessions, the staggering ‘Fixin’ To Die Blues’, was also picked up by Bob Dylan for his debut album.
Sam continued to be a popular performer into the 40s but the rise of amplification, which the washboard didn’t translate successfully to, coupled with the altering tastes of the record buying public, saw his career decline and after an unsuccessful effort with Chess Records in the early 50s he retired from the music business.
H.S.
You best believe you better listen to this;
- ‘Diggin’ My Potatoes’ – Washboard Sam & His Washboard Band
- ‘Back Door Man’ – Washboard Sam & His Washboard Band
- ‘Highway 51 Blues’ – Curtis Jones
- Bukka White Session: ‘When Can I Change My Clothes’, ‘High Fever Blues’, ‘Strange Place Blues’, ‘Special Stream Line’, ‘Black Train Blues’, ‘Fixin’ To Die Blues’, ‘Good Gin Blues’, ‘Bukka’s Jitterbug Swing’, ‘Parchman Farm Blues’, ‘District Attorney Blues’, ‘Sleepy Man Blues’, ‘Aberdeen Mississippi Blues’
By Mal Peachey
April 12, 2012 in Blog
We all know that a Rocket 88 was an automobile (that’s one, above), and that the (arguably) first Rock & Roll record was named after it. Nearly all of Chuck Berry’s early, great songs had lines about automobiles, even if they weren’t the subject of the song. A car in the 1950s was a teenager’s passport to freedom, the place where they could have fun and sin away from parental interference. A car enabled teens with the money and access to wheels to go places, obviously, but it also allowed them to take pals with them. It might be a cliché now, but that’s only because it was once true; men with motors were always reelin’ and rocking’. American autos of the 1950s were magnificently sculpted heaps of iron, with bench seats big enough to double as a divan when needed, to carry three up front and five in back. It’s no wonder that there were so many R&R songs written as hymns to the auto.
Surprisingly though, the car was rarely seen on EP and long playing record covers in the 1950s. The artist was still considered the main selling point for record companies, so mug shots of Elvis, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly dominated record racks. Chuck berry’s album covers of the era are all odd: there’s Chuck looking like he’s having a fit on one, a bowl of cherries on another. There’s no car to be seen. Bo Diddley sleeves are similarly weird, although he did manage to find some wheels for his Have Guitar Will Travel album of 1960…
It wasn’t until the 1960s that California custom car culture—sung about most popularly by The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean—started to influence cover design at record companies. That’s when fabulous autos began to turn up as the main image on album covers. Here’s a great one on a C&W sleeve from 1962:
Over the next few weeks and months, we’re hoping to put up images of album cover art that celebrates the automobile, and we’re open to suggestions as to what we might want to display. Let us know either here or at our Facebook page which album covers featuring cars that you think are worth inclusion in a R88 compilation.
By Henry Sloan
April 2, 2012 in Blog, Ridin' Along in my Automobile
Hello there, my name is Henry Sloan and following on from my ‘The First Pickle Out of the Jar’ blog I will now start the ‘Ridin’ in my Automobile’ blog where I’ll be discussing all sorts of car-related things but as this is the first one we’ll stick to music and use the company name as a jump-off point.
The first Rock 'n' Roll record?
The Rocket 88 comes from the Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner song of the same name, which many consider the first Rock ‘n’ Roll record. The track was recorded in 1951 for the legendary Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, and was named for the Oldsmobile Rocket 88, a car which had been put on sale in 1949. In that same year Boogie Woogie piano giant Pete Johnson wrote his own ode to the vehicle in the form of the two-part instrumental ‘Rocket Boogie “88” Part 1’ and ‘Rocket Boogie “88” Part 2’. Johnson himself has a claim to be the first artist to record a Rock ‘n’ Roll song when he, along with Blues shouter supreme Big Joe Turner, cut the excellent ‘Roll ‘Em Pete’ in 1938.
The automobile that inspired Robert Johnson's 'Terraplane Blues'
Johnson’s idea of using a car as inspiration for a song was hardly original with many Blues artists utilising the language of automobiles and roads, right from the earliest days of the genre. Another Johnson, Robert to be precise, was one of many Blues artists that pre-dated Pete Johnson to record a song that used a car, and car parts, as metaphors for women, relationships, and sex. 1936’s ‘Terraplane Blues’ was the most successful release of Robert Johnson’s short career and in the song the poet laureate of the Blues leaves little to the imagination: “I’m gon’ get down in this connection, oh well, keep on tanglin’ with these wires, and when I mash down on your little starter, then your spark plug will give me fire”. The Terraplane was made by the Hudson Motor Car Company, first hitting the roads of America in 1932. Strangely enough it was in that same year that Robert Johnson set out on his own road as a wandering musician, one which came to end in 1938, the same year Hudson discontinued the Terraplane. Another interesting car-related anecdote involving Robert Johnson finds the singer and his heavily pregnant wife being driven to the hospital so that she can give birth. The driver, it seems, was going too fast down the bumpy country roads for Mr. Johnson’s liking as it is alleged he asked him to slow down and quipped “My wife’s percolatin’”!
One of Robert Johnson’s running buddies was the legendary harmonica virtuoso Sonny Boy Williamson II who also added to the Blues car-song canon with his ‘Pontiac Blues’ which he recorded originally in 1951 and then later, in the 1960s, with both The Yardbirds and The Animals. Sonny Boy, although a formidable player in his own right was nowhere near as successful in the late 1930s and 1940s as the original Sonny Boy Williamson and so he borrowed his name to help give his career a boost. Sonny Boy I, real name John Lee Williamson, was the first bona fide star of the Blues harmonica, taking it from its position as a mere back-up instrument, akin to the kazoo, and putting it front and centre. The very first number he recorded was his original composition, ‘Good Morning, School Girl’, and the song would go on to become a Blues standard with scores of artists covering it.
Although Memphis Minnie didn’t cover ‘Good Morning, School Girl’ she used the music, harmony line, and vocal phrasing, for her excellent ‘Me and My Chauffeur Blues’ which she recorded in 1941. Minnie seems to have the same kind of concerns that Robert Johnson has in ‘Terraplane Blues’ as she sings “But I don’t want him, but I don’t want him, to be ridin’ these girls around, so I’m gonna steal me a pistol, and shoot my chauffeur down” – how Minnie can afford a chauffeur but needs to steal a pistol is a question for the ages although I’m guessing the chauffeur wasn’t getting paid in cash money!
Around the time that ‘Me and My Chauffeur Blues’ was released, future R & B legend Joe Liggins was taking his first tentative steps in the music business and by 1944 had became a star with his very first cut, ‘The Honeydripper’. By the time ‘The Honeydripper’ had hit the charts Joe’s younger brother, Jimmy, was working as his chauffeur but Jimmy was obviously more useful behind the microphone than he was behind the wheel as he quit the driving job and signed with Speciality Records in 1947. That same year he recorded ‘Cadillac Boogie’ and it was this song that provided the musical blueprint for – you guessed it –‘Rocket 88’.
Do yourself a favour and check out the songs and artists mentioned in this blog:
By Mal Peachey
March 27, 2012 in Blog
The unveiling of a plaque on March 27 that commemorates the alley in which the cover of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust LP sleeve was shot, was a bit of a shock. The occasion was supposed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the release of the iconic record, although it’s actually more than two months early (or two weeks early for the anniversary of the release of the first, and only hit single on it, Starman). It was the 40th anniversary which gave the first shock, but the attendant widespread publicity given to the unveiling of the plaque by a former member of Spandau Ballet seemed way out of proportion with the importance of the event. Bowie wasn’t there, and that’s to his credit. So why was it ‘an event’? Presumably because Citigroup, who now own EMI records the current label with right to re-release the original recordings are intending to market another re-release. It might also mean that owners of the Bowie Bonds will at last get some kind of return on their investment. And there’s the point: Bowie sold his Rebel Rebel self back in the late 1990s to capitalist corporate brand managers who hoped to use his once iconic songs to sell stuff to young, impressionable people who might actually choose to buy Microsoft packages (“Heroes”), shop at M&S (“Let’s Dance”), or drive a Renault Clio, possibly while playing a stylophone (“Space Oddity”, also used in a Lincoln car ad although performed by Cat Power) because Bowie endorses it.
The idea that Bowie was some kind of rebel icon is as preposterous as the idea that Bob Dylan was ever spokesman for his generation. Bowie always wanted to be a superstar, after trying on a Mod suit in imitation of his rival Marc Feld, he failed to become the new Anthony Newley. Then he noticed that Marc had changed his name, hairstyle and outfit, so David also became a hippy. Mind you, that was after he’d had a hit with a song written to cash in on the Moon-mania which erupted when Neil Armstrong took one small step for man. Figuring it was a one-off and that playing Led Zep-style rock music was the best way to break the American market though, Bowie put on a Mr Fish dress/housecoat and promptly got himself banned for supposedly cross dressing in public.
It was his old pal Marc who gave Bowie the idea for Ziggy. Having put stars on his eyes, glitter in his corkscrew-curls and turned on the fuzz face, Bolan made T.Rex the biggest band in Britain (‘The New Beatles’ screamed the tabloids). Bowie, liking the look, and his guitarist Mick Ronson liking the sound, went back into space for inspiration. Just as it had been in the 1950s, sci-fi was big in the early 1970s, and being an alien from outer space meant that you could have hair of any colour, wear clothes of either gender and still make it on to kids TV shows. So Bowie’s career really took off, although his Aladdin Sane character was way more successful in terms of sales and hits than Ziggy ever was.
Watching footage of Bowie performing in 1974 brought to mind a performer from forty years earlier than that: Cab Calloway. His Kickin’ The Gong Around is a far from subtle song about the dangers—or rather the fun—of getting hooked on blow. Bowie probably played this on endless replay while touring as the Thin White Duke (his self-confessed cocaine years). It’s certainly more fun and far less pretentious than Bowie’s performances of the mid-’70s. Forty years before Ziggy Stardust seemed like a far stranger time to teenagers of 1972 than I think 1972 feels for teenagers today. That’s probably because more of 1972 is readily available to see and hear online now than we had access to back then.
The exploitation of music post-Rock ‘n’Roll by mass media, retail businesses and advertising in order to sell stuff to kids has become slicker, more effective and far more acceptable by kids than it was in 1972. It seems almost quaint now to recall how The Clash refused to release songs as singles which were already available on LP releases. But they did. In 1932 performers like Calloway, Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, The Boswell Sisters (above with Bing) who recorded a song called Rock And Roll that year, and Rudy Vallee had only the radio and movies to promote them, those movies were b/w and seemed hopelessly outdated in 1972—not that they were shown very often.
George Formby was more often shown on British television in the early 1970s though, and his movies were often on at Saturday morning picture shows for the under-14s, and broadcast on weekend afternoons. As the great scene in the 2011 movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy demonstrated, Formby was also played on the radio in the early 1970s, his nasal whine and plonking banjolele (a banjo-style ukelele) sounding out amid the glam, soul and disco tunes which interrupted DJ chatter.The choice of Chinese Laundry Blues was inspired by the makers of the movie, reminding us of the Western idea that the mysterious orient was partly funny, but also a sinister place. As space exploration and sic-fi was to the early 1970s, so China and the Far East was to the early 1930s—Cab Calloway’s Minnie is at a Chinese opium den, remember. See also Shanghai Express (1932) and the Charlie Chan movies (1931—1937 starring Warner Oland) for further proof of the fascination for the Orient.
Like Bowie, Formby began his professional life as one style of entertainer before becoming more successful with a different look altogether: the Wigan-born singer-comedian started out as a jockey, at the age of 10. Also like Bowie he longed to ‘break’ America, and while he made eleven movies for Columbia Studios, George’s wide-Lancs accent, gormless looks and typical English seaside humour didn’t cross the Atlantic successfully. Ziggy didn’t either, really—the album never broke into the Billboard top 40. Formby got a plaque before Ziggy though, and it’s a proper, blue one. It was unveiled in 2009 near the site of his birthplace, 3 Westminster Street, Wigan.
Pink Moon