Development of the British Blues and Rhythm

  --- show 49 ---   5-25-2016

Blues Band                           1981

Johnny Mars                    1980-1994

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This is another show that I have been anxiously awaiting.  I do not have any direct connection with any of the artists that we have profiled in this series … until now!  There used to be a Blues DJ here at KKUP in the early 90s who used the moniker Dan the Bluesman and he had the privilege of showing around the Bay Area some of the performers who came into town for the San Francisco Blues Festival and one of them was Johnny Mars.  Johnny came over from England for the festival but actually had an earlier Blues band out of San Francisco in 1967 which also included guitarist Dan Kennedy.

Johnny was raised in the South where he would visit juke joints and become exposed to the recordings of the Bluesmen of the day such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and, likely most noteworthy, Muddy’s harmonica man Little Walter Jacobs.  Mars had started playing harmonica by the time he was nine years old, and when his mother died in 1957 when he was 14 Johnny moved to New Palz in New York State where he joined his first Blues band, the Train Riders.  The band morphed into the Burning Bush and by the mid-60s Johnny was recording for Mercury Records.  As he was playing around Greenwich Village he performed in the same show as Jimmi James and the Blue Flames, a guitarist who later became known as Jimi Hendrix.

In 1967 Johnny came to San Francisco and assembled what would become The Johnny Mars Band where he played bass as well as harmonica, performing at many of the free festivals that were prevalent at the time.  The band toured with Magic Sam and played on gigs with Earl Hooker, B.B. King and Jesse Fuller.  In May of 1972, Johnny and his wife Elaine moved to Britain and Johnny once again looked around for band mates, soon making the album Blues from Mars.

Long after becoming established in England, Johnny played a gig with Jazz guitarist Larry Carlton and the wording is unclear on whether it is this performance or one of Johnny’s own which was telecast in Germany in 1984 and is available on DVD.  In 1991 Johnny sat in with the Pop group Bananarama for their single The Preacher Man and appeared on the video.  This, as well as his guesting on their other singles Megalamaniac and Long Train Running, led to more TV opportunities across Europe as he continued performing in Blues Festivals in the U.K. and on the continent and even back in the U.S.

A longtime priority for Johnny over the years has been to pass on the legacy of the Blues harmonica and to that end he put in more than 15 years in the British public school system and, in 1999, this was embodied in his CD Dare to Dream, Aim to Achieve, as well as organizing a youth ensemble, Johnny Mars and the Stars.

So before that is where I enter the picture.  In my cab travels I had met Dan Kennedy who was playing regularly at one of the clubs where I often picked up customers and we got to know each other, so when Johnny came to the Bay Area again Dan brought him down to KKUP to tell us his story.  At one point in the conversation I used the term stateside and it caught Johnny’s ear, saying, “Stateside; I like that.  I should call my next album that.”  I believe it was that day that Johnny gave me a couple of his CDs that we’ll hear today, Can You Hear Me and Life on Mars.

Well, Johnny visited again pretty quickly after that and went into the studio and cut the album Stateside.  Dan called me up one evening around that time and said he was busy but would I like to show Johnny around town some and I was happy to do so.  There was a club (the now-defunct C.S. Riff’s) that featured some bands I enjoyed and I took Johnny to sit in with Sid Morris’ band.  Now, realize that Johnny had been first described to me as thinking of Jimi Hendrix except on harmonica, and I think you’ll hear why that image stuck with me, but even without all of his effects his pure harmonica blended perfectly with Sid’s band.  I haven’t seen Dan for years, maybe even decades, but when the Stateside disc was ready for distribution he made sure I got one.

A few years ago I made a rare stop in at a book store and looked at Living Blues magazine and there, staring at me from the cover, was Johnny Mars.  I’ll probably locate it right after the show; isn’t that how it always works?  I went online and purchased the 1980 album Mighty Mars to open up our show with the earliest material I could get my hands on.  Our second Mars set is taken from 1984’s Life on Mars with the closer taken from the CD Can You Hear Me (release date uncertain).

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We continue with our primary band from our last airing on their third album, Itchy Feet.  The CD version of the 1982 release includes 74 minutes of music and we will hear the original LP in our first Blues Band set while the later grouping is from the many included outtakes.  Just as excellent as their first two discs, I would just like to point out one bit of lyrics that caught my ear.  From Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio, “If my money and my guitar were burning I know which one I would choose”.  I doubt that it would be surprising to any of you the emotional value placed by musicians on their instruments, likely the most time invested in any relationship throughout a lifetime.  Even a poor musician as myself, while I haven’t held my bass guitar for more than five minutes at any one time in the last ten years, has a favorite tune to the axe, I Can’t Quit You Baby (but I have to put you down for a while).

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A couple of notes on upcoming stuff: I will be filling in for Dr. J who has been subbing for The Conductor on the Thursday 5-7pm slot one day after this show.  Not quite sure what Blues I’ll play but it will not be British.  And our 2016 Blues marathon is coming up June 24^th through 26^th and I have posted the most up to date schedule at the end of today’s playlist.

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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a developing stage, we have been putting out the word.  I’m not all of that good with high-tech stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.  If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to the last option being LISTEN ONLINE.  By clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile.  I can only speak for the desktop but after maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed.  As already mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any one time.  I mention this so you will be aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening.  (I put the player in my favorites bar for the easiest of access.)  Now we can reach our listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada.  Let your friends elsewhere know they can now listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they can check out our schedule.

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Johnny’s Groove
Desert Island
Cash Ain’t Nothing
If I Had a Woman
Watch Yourself
Mighty Mars
Rocket 88
I’ll Go Crazy
Mellow Down
   Johnny Mars

Talkin’ Woman Blues

Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong
Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio
Itchy Feet
Ultimatum Time
So Lonely
I Can’t Be Satisfied
Got to Love You Baby
Nothin’ But the Blues
Let Your Bucket Down
Come On
   The Blues Band

Don’t Start Me Talking

Standing in Line
I Can’t Take a Jealous Woman
Born Under a Bad Sign
Get On Up
Steal Away
Keep On Swingin’
   Johnny Mars

Tobacco Road

Doing Alright
Stealing
Let the Four Winds Blow
-         Smokestack Lightning
Bad Penny Blues
Green Stuff (LIVE)
   The Blues Band

Living in the Ghetto

-         A Change Will Come
Driving Sideways
Can You Hear Me?
I’m Hungry Blues
Harp Funk
Hoochie Coochie Man
   Johnny Mars

2016 Blues Marathon schedule:

FRIDAY     June 24th 2016

noon-3pm   Gil  will host live music

   1pm Rob Vey

   2pm Preacher boy 

3-6pm   "Blue Suede Dave" Stafford will continue with live music:

   3pm Chris Burkhardt

   4pm Ruth Gerson 

6-9pm   Mike the Fly

9-midnight   Kingman

SATURDAY     June 25th, 2016

midnight-3am  The Rhythm Mechanic will be exploring the Many Shades of the Blues, from the Darkness of the Delta to the Brightest of the Bay

3-6am  Dr. J

6-9am   Tomas Montoya

9am-noon   The One Foggy-Eyed Radish  

noon-2pm  Lars Bourne

2-4pm Mark Owens

4-6pm   The Conductor

6-8pm   Jim Dandy and his Mystic Blues Knights of the El Camino

8-10   Paul Johnson and friends

10-midnight   Rhythm Doctor and friends

SUNDAY     June 26th, 2016

midnight-3am  Johnnie Cozmik

3-7am   Bobby G

7-10am   Paul Jacobs

10am-noon   The Hoochie Coochie Man (Rockin’ Rick)

noon-2pm Jim and Gratia

2pm   Jammin' Jim Farris transitions us from the recorded music to our live in-studio Blues

3pm-midnight will be live performances in the station.

3pm GG Amos

4pm Ron Thompson

5pm Pat Wilder

6[pm Gary Smith,David Barrett,Andy Just

7pm the Benton st blues band

8pm Alabama Mike 

9pm JC Smith 

10pm Big Jon Atkinson

11pm Kid Andersen,Aki Kumar and friends

Development of the British Blues & Rhythm

  --- show 48 ---   5-11-2016

Blues Band                                 1980 & 1981

Rory Gallagher                                1982
Bruce / Trower                            1981 & 1982

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My brother came into the San Jose airport on a Wednesday that I was scheduled to do a show and my alternating host, Paul, kindly allowed me to switch weeks, so when I picked him up in my mother’s car we were listening to Paul’s show.  I had taken advantage of the opportunity of having another driver in town to have my car worked on and when I picked up and got in that vehicle I remember thinking the music was exceptional but more akin to what I play than what Paul would until, a few songs into it, I realized it was a CD and no longer the radio.  I purchased the 2-disc set which we’ll be hearing today way back in February 2014, less than two months into what has turned into this marathon event which is fast approaching two and a half years, so it is safe to say this is the longest awaited airing to date. 

As we’ve watched the transitions of many of the Blues acts from the sixties go way more rock, even psychedelic in some cases, this ensemble that came together in 1979 maintains a purity in their repertoire that makes me sure there is not one tune in these sets that can be described as anything but the Blues, and I realize there are songs here by Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. 

The Blues Band consists of some of the best veteran British Bluesmen with pedigrees to prove it.  When Paul Jones was offered a couple of gigs to fill, he called his friend from his Manfred Mann days, Tom McGuiness, who then called drummer Hughie Flint.  Flint was an early member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers even before the time they moved from Manchester to London, through Eric Clapton’s tenure (he appeared on Mayall’s first American LP which featured Clapton on the cover reading a Beano comic book) and into the Peter Green era.  McGuiness had an even earlier Clapton connection as he had shared guitar duties with Eric in The Roosters and then Casey Jones and the Engineers right before Clapton joined the Yardbirds, with Tom shortly afterward going into Manfred Mann.  McGuiness joined Mann as their bass player but moved back to guitar when Jack Bruce joined the band, and he remained with the Mann group until their demise in 1969.  During the later part of the Manfreds, McGuiness’ neighbor Flint would occasionally join in on stage with added percussion.  A few months later, the two put together the Celtic folk/rock group McGuiness Flint.  Jones, harmonica player and one of the lead vocalists in the Blues Band, had fronted the Mann group almost since its inception until leaving to pursue his own musical and acting careers

Now with three willing players, McGuiness was referred to Dave Kelly for a lead guitarist slot.  McGuiness: “For a while, the band was a trio with no bass player.  Then somebody told us Dave Kelly was around, doing solo gigs in folk clubs.  He joined us on slide guitar and he brought (bassist) Gary Fletcher with him.”  We have heard Dave before in several entries, from backing his sister Jo Ann Kelly through the John Dummer Band and most recently in an acoustical duet format with pianist Bob Hall.  Hall had also been with Kelly in the Brunning Sunflower Band, but he had always prioritized the security of his day job as he appeared as an on again / off again member of the Savoy Brown Band among others.  His association with Dave likely began with his regularly backing up Jo Ann.  Regarding his participation in the Blues Band, McGuiness stated in 2000, “Bob Hall is our longest serving master of the 88s, still joining us for the occasional gig to this day.  He’s on several tracks on both The Bootleg Album and Ready”.

McGuiness looked back on the way the band represented the music they so admired, “We might just be doing a couple of dates, but we wanted the numbers to be structured, with lots of dynamics: music in the style of the American Blues masters who had inspired us to play.”  Kelly: “What I liked about the band was that every song was a single and didn’t go on for fifteen minutes.  I was also able to sing as well, which was nice, because in every other band I had been in, I’d been the lead singer.” 

The first gig of The Blues Band took place in April of 1979 and the band remained intact (with the exception of Rob Townsend replacing Flint behind the drum kit) until December 18^th 1982, when its founding members opted to pursue other non-musical opportunities.  Flint: “And all my life I’ve had a resistance to being on the road.  I talked to the guys, said I wasn’t happy and left after completing the existing gigs at the end of 1981.  They couldn’t have got a better replacement in Rob Townsend.”  McGuiness went into television producing and directing while Jones continued his acting career fulltime.  Kelly put together his own group which at different times included McGuiness and Jones.  The band re-united in 1989 and was still going strong, at least as of the 2011 revision date of Greg Russo’s book on Manfred Mann, Mannerisms.

Almost since their first appearance, the larger than expected audiences were asking if they had an album out, but the record labels considered the Blues out of style and the boys too old, so they went into the studio on their own and, as McGuiness recalls, “So we made the Bootleg album.  We financed it and put it out ourselves, printing the cover with a John Bull printing set, and autographing the first thousand.  I say we financed it but, having recorded most of these tracks at Tommy Steele’s Nova Studio, we found ourselves unable to pay the bill.  So we liberated the master tapes and bootlegged ourselves.”  Despite the limitation of a 3,000 album pressing, the LP sold well enough in the record shops of the U.K. and around Europe to draw the attention of Arista Records.  McGuiness again, “Arista steamed in and bought the album from us with options for three or four more. … Bootleg sold tens of thousands and went into the charts, as did the next two, Ready and Itchy Feet.”  I am presenting this album in its original sequence except for extracting the live tracks to put at the end of the set.

McGuiness: “We had never expected to find such a large audience enjoying music we made for our own pleasure.  And we were able to pay our recording bill at Nova.”  Past sins taken care of, the band spent time between November 1979 and the following July at Nova as well as Air Recording Studios.  For the second release, there were a few guest appearances: Ian Stewart, of Rolling Stones fame, played piano on Nadine and That’s Alright while Geraint Watkins tickled the ivories on Hallelujah I Love Her So.  And, as McGuiness recalls, “We were lucky enough to have ace accordionist Rockin’ Dopsie plus his washboard player, Chester Zeno, join us for Hey, Hey Little Girl.  I remember in the studio asking Chester to play a particular figure on washboard.  Before Chester could reply, Dopsie leaned across and said, “He my mule.  I say pull, he pull”.  End of conversation.  And after the recording, Dopsie pocketed both fees, saying he’d settle up with Chester.  I hope he did.” 

“When Paul Jones first asked me about the idea of forming a Blues band back in 1979, I meant it when I said, ‘I don’t want to be going on the road’.  And here I am 32 years later, doing 120 gigs a year and I love it.”

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Jack Bruce’s career has been thoroughly chronicled in past columns of this series, but in 1981 he teamed up with guitarist Robin Trower resulting in the two albums we hear today.  I never got into Trower, probably because what I heard appeared to be highly derivative of the Jimi Hendrix fever that was prevalent at the time.

Born on March 9^th 1945, Robin was in his share of bands in the London area in the mid-sixties, perhaps most notably the Paramounts whom we heard early on as one of the backup groups chosen by Duffy Power for some of his sessions.  Singer and pianist Gary Brooker had a hit with A Whiter Shade of Pale under the pseudonym Procal Harum, so when it came time to perform it on stage he convinced his former Paramounts bandmate Trower to join on guitar in 1967.

Robin stayed with the band for several recordings through 1971 but embarked on his solo career with 1973’s Twice Removed from Yesterday, then hit big as his next LP, Bridge of Sighs, hit #7 in the U.S. charts in 1974.  Trower remained a popular live act but none of his other 70s releases came close to his already established peak and his career was on the wane when he and his drummer Bill Lordan joined forces with Bruce for 1981’s BLT and its 1982 follow-up Truce.  After these two projects, Trower returned to his solo career and, although his heyday was behind him, maintained a pretty solid musical legacy that continues to this day.

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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a developing stage, we have been putting out the word.  I’m not all of that good with high-tech stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.  If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to the last option being LISTEN ONLINE.  By clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile.  I can only speak for the desktop but after maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed.  As already mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any one time.  I mention this so you will be aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening.  (I put the player in my favorites bar for the easiest of access.)  Now we can reach our listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada.  Let your friends elsewhere know they can now listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they can check out our schedule.

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Talk to Me Baby
Flatfoot Sam
Someday Baby
Come On In
Death Letter
Going Home
Diddy Wah Diddy
I Don’t Know
Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)
Two Bones and a Pick
   The Blues Band   34min

Into Money

No Island Lost
It’s Too Late
Life On Earth
Once the Bird Has Flown
Feel the Heat
End Game
   Robin Trower / Jack Bruce   26min

Big Guns

Bourbon
Nothing but the Devil
Ride On, Red, Ride On
Loose Talk
Lonely Mile   (time permitting)
Signals
The Devil Made Me Do It
   Rory Gallagher

Gonna Shut You Down

Gone Too Far
Thin Ice
Last Train to the Stars
Fall in Love
Fat Gut
Little Boy Lost
   Robin Trower / Jack Bruce   23min

Twenty-Nine Ways

Find Yourself Another Fool
Noah Lewis Blues
Hallelujah I Love Her So
Treat Her Right
Lonely Avenue
That’s All Right
I’m Ready
Hey, Hey Little Girl
Can’t Hold On
Sus Blues
The Cat
Nadine
   The Blues Band   47min