Backstroke (third Mondays
10pm-1am)
1-18-2016 fill-in
Jimmy “Fast Fingers” Dawkins 1969-1990s
Blind Willie Johnson 1927Bud Powell 1946, ‘47
Blind Blake 1926
Nappy Brown
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Well,
this should be a lot of fun. Way back
when we were still in our Santa Clara studio there was an opening in this time
slot on the first Monday of each month and, since there were no applicants with
Blues experience and the rest of the rotation was 100% Blues and the
hours fit naturally into my schedule, I was asked to apply and covered the
shows until maybe three years later when Gil de Leon was having work conflicts
on his show. This slot better fit his
hours and he has been able take over that show ever since. It will be kind of a homecoming for me to
this time slot which I believe to be the longest running of any of KKUP’s Blues
shows. Add to that I am looking forward
to playing something besides British stuff and you understand why this should be a lot of fun.
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So, I went to see Johnnie Cozmik’s band Friday and he
had a guest from Chicago, guitarist Pistol Pete, sitting in with the band. You guys know I always enjoy Johnnie’s stage show,
and Pete just added a little something more, something different. That’s downstating his abilities, actually; I
would have been happy to see him no matter who was backing him! Anyway, the two of them just might be coming
by the station tonight and I would be happy to fit some of his music into the
show.
And
if they don’t, that’s okay because I have a whole lot of music set aside for
today’s airing. Now let me tell you
about it …
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Jimmy
Dawkins is one of those perfect examples
of the way I used to introduce myself to new artists. If you have followed my airings over the last
quarter century here at KKUP, you might be aware that Magic Sam’s second album
for the Delmark label, Black Magic from 1969, is to this day still my favorite
album, EVER, so when I saw that three of the sidemen from that album
were on another one backing some guitarist with the nickname “Fast Fingers” (also
the title of the LP) there was an extremely good chance this would be my kind
of music. To be found here are
saxophonist Eddie Shaw, piano man Lafayette Leake and guitarist Mighty Joe
Young, Young having been on both of Sam’s Delmark studio sessions, and indeed I
was not disappointed. Players of note on
his second album, All for Business and again for Delmark with three tunes
winding up our first set, are guitarist Otis Rush and tenor sax player Jim
Conley. Sonny Thompson, who had done so
much for King Records (songwriting, arranging and producing), particularly for
Freddie King, is relegated here to only playing keyboards. Jimmy only sings two songs for the album and
we hear Down So Long while Andrew “Big Voice” Odom takes care of all the rest. Odom also served in the same capacity on some
of Earl Hooker’s stuff.
Jimmy had honed his chops on the club scene of Chicago’s
West Side for more than a decade before Delmark gave him this, his first
recording opportunity under his own name.
Mississippi born and moved to Chicago in 1955, Jimmy gave up his day job
in the factory in 1957 once he bought a guitar in order to pursue his
music. “I’m determined at what I
do. I set out to play music, so I play
it. No money, cheap money, small money,
no gigs. And we stayed with it. I stayed out there. I didn’t quit . . . scared I couldn’t make it
in the business.” When he came to the
attention of Delmark’s Bob Koester, Dawkins backed recordings by Carey Bell,
Luther Allison, Mighty Joe Young and Sleepy John Estes before recording three
albums of his own. In the 70s, Willie Dixon
used Jimmy many times as a sideman. “He
just kept me in the studio, teaching me a lot, helping me.” For a couple of years, while Jimmy Rogers was
with Muddy Waters, Dawkins was part of Rogers’ road group.
In 1971 Jimmy received France’s Grand Prix du Disc
award for the Fast Fingers album and at one point, Downbeat magazine voted him
the best Rock / Pop / Blues act worthy of more attention. Health issues in the 80s, however, caused
Jimmy to cut back on his club work and restrict his performances to festivals
and foreign tours. He released two
European LPs and started up his own label, Leric, to produce albums by lesser
known West Side artists. Putting in much
of his time on the business side of the music world, he also involved himself
in booking, promotion and publishing.
Jimmy also contributed articles about the Chicago Blues scene to the
British magazine Blues Unlimited.
I skipped a couple of those European albums in my
collection because there is plenty of better music for today’s show. Jimmy came back with a fury in his axe in
1991 when he released an album on the Earwig label, Kant Shek Dees Bluze. Yeah, my computer’s editor tried to tell me
that most of the titles were misspelled but it irritates me like that fairly
often. Nora Jean Wallace takes a couple
of the vocals on the album (we only hear A Love L:ike That) and he employs a
couple of familiar names in his band – pianist “Professor” Eddie Lusk, who I
know had been in the bands of Otis Rush and Luther Allison, and Johnny B.
Gayden, who provided some of the best bass playing ever recorded when he backed
Albert Collins. Second guitarist Jimmy
Flynn had been in the Legendary Blues Band since 1984 and drummer Ray Scott was
a longtime member of the Dawkins ensemble.
While
Jimmy didn’t quite reach the pinnacle of my favorites like Howlin’ Wolf or his
contemporaries Freddie King, Magic Sam and Luther Allison, he fits comfortably
atop the second tier among the likes of Otis Rush and Buddy Guy.
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Blind Willie
Johnson was a gospel-based Bluesman,
backing up his mostly religious lyrics with an excellent slide guitar
technique. Oftentimes heard contrasting
his raspy bass vocals was the more angelic voice of his first wife, Willie B. Harris. Johnson's was the earliest recording that I
am aware of, and much more uniquely gruff than those who followed, in the style
that became the trademark of Charlie Patton and Howlin' Wolf.Blind Willie was believed born in Marlin, Texas in 1902. His mother died in his infancy, but it was his stepmother who, while in an argument with his father, made the boy blind by throwing lye in the face of the seven year old. Like so many of his era with this handicap, teaching himself guitar and singing on the streets became a viable life option.
Johnson recorded for Columbia and his first session in 1927 produced "Dark was the Night (Cold was the Ground)", an eerie instrumental accompanied only by his moans, which was chosen to be included as an artifact on the Voyager One probe into space. Sorry, I’ve heard it but don’t have it. Another of his songs got him thrown in jail when, unaware that he was in front of a Federal building in Dallas, he made the innocent choice of playing "If I Had My Way I'd Tear this Building Down". Although his recording sessions only lasted into 1931, many of his songs would be included in the repertoires of artists as varied as Son House, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Al Kooper, Hot Tuna and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Johnson's ambitions lay elsewhere, and after his brief recording career, he became a Baptist minister whose congregation could be found on the street corners as he performed spirituals just as fervently as he had played his Blues on the streets of his past, and continued doing so until he died of pneumonia in 1947.
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For all of 2014 and 2015 I have been consumed with a
study of the British Blues and I have been missing the good old stuff from this
side of the Atlantic, and I also have decided to include some Jazz on the show
when that task is completed. To that
end, I am including here a set of pianist Bud
Powell. While I know there are other
great Jazzmen on the keys, Bud is the one I am most familiar with and he is one
of the reasons why Bebop is my favorite form of Jazz. Forget the vocals, just give me those rapid fire
instrumentals!
Earl Rudolph Powell was born September 27th
1924 in New York into a musical family.
Returning from the war in Cuba, his grandfather Zachery had become an
accomplished Flamenco guitarist and his father William gave up his stride piano
aspirations to instead raise his family.
Older brother William was a professional trumpet player and his younger
brother Richie learned the piano from Bud and his father. Richie was with the Max Roach / Clifford
Brown band when, on June 25th 1956, at the age of 24, he was killed
in an auto mishap that took his life as well as that of Brown.
Bud began playing piano at age six and learned the
classical style until his mid-teens when he got interested in Jazz. At age fifteen, he dropped out of high school
after three years to turn pro as he joined his brother William’s band. After a while, he acquired a residency at the
Chicken Coop Restaurant in Harlem followed by the Palace in Greenwich Village. After work he would hit the late night jam
sessions in Harlem where he met Thelonius Monk, who became a friend and musical
influence as he introduced Bud to the other musicians. Our second song, Off Minor, is a Monk
composition.
In 1942 Powell became a member of the Cootie Williams
band and despite being only nineteen, trumpeter Williams allowed him plenty of
solo time. It didn’t take long before
Bud was providing arrangements and was made the band’s musical director. He went into the studio in January 1944 with
a sextet from Cootie’s larger ensemble for his first recording session. The sextet was back two days later for
another four track session and in May was part of two tracks cut fir the Armed
Forces Radio Jubilee broadcasts, one with the full band and another with the
sextet.
Sources vary about what started an incident January 21st
1945 after a Williams gig, but it is clear he was beaten up by the police. After a quick patch job of his head wounds,
Powell was taken to the police station and put in a cell where he received
ammonia showers when he complained of his treatment. When Bud was released he was in such bad
shape he could not be let out alone. His
mother treated him as he recuperated but he would suffer extreme headaches ever
after.
Bud went back to work, including a session with Frank
Socolow’s Duke Quintet on May 2nd, but it would be his only recording
session in 1945. His headaches were
severe enough that he checked himself into Bellevue Hospital where he was put
under observation and from there was shipped off to Long Island’s Creedmoor State
Hospital. Creedmoor was a mental
institution where it was commonplace particularly for negroes to be grossly
mistreated, ranging from poisonings with drugs to electroshock “treatments”. Powell was fortunate that eventually a doctor
who happened to be a Jazz fan recognized him and took it upon himself to
request legitimate tests to uncover the source of the problems. Bud was finally turned loose in December,
again to his mother’s care, but the headaches never went away.
Still, 1946 was a prolific year for Powell playing for
the likes of Dexter Gordon and Sarah Vaughan.
We start our set off shortly afterward with as small a group as
available to best show off Powell’s talents as he plays two numbers with his
trio featuring drummer Max Roach and bassist Curly Russell in a session from
January 10th 1947. We step
back to June of 1946 for our next tune and the five piece band of trombonist
Jay Johnson’s Be-Boppers, which again included Roach alongside bassist Victor
Gaskin and altoist Cecil Payne. The next
two tracks were taped on August 23rd 1946 by the Bebop Boys, another
five piece including trombonist Kenny Dorham, alto saxman Sonny Stitt and
bassist Al Hall. Wallace Bishop was the
drummer on Bombay before Kenny Clarke came in for the second half of the
session.
And
then we come to the four tunes by the five members of the Charlie Parker All
Stars session from May 8th 1947, the only time Parker and Powell
would be recorded together in the studio. True to their moniker, the ensemble includes
Powell and Roach, altoist Parker, Miles Davis on trumpet and Tommy Potter
playing bass. Roach and Powell are
together again with bass player Ray Brown rounding out the trio for our closing
threesome of tunes recorded quite a bit later in early 1949. Regarding some of the names from these two
sets, Donna Lee was Curly Russell’s daughter, Buzzy was the son of Savoy
Records owner and Celia was named for Bud’s newborn daughter.
In between these last two sessions, Bud began to drink more heavily. According to Ebony magazine’s Alan Morrison, “He began to acquire a bad reputation and was abusive when drunk. He got into brawls too often and had an irrational fear of getting attacked in the street.” In November of 1947, Bud suffered a nervous breakdown and found himself back in Creedmoor where he was subjected to more electroshock to little avail. Toward the end of his eleven months there he was allowed to spend weekends at home with his wife, the former May Frances Barnes, and their daughter Celia.
Just weeks following that 1949 session, Bud was admitted once again to Creedmoor, but this time he seemed to handle it all better. A young alto saxist, Jackie McLean, became close to Powell during this time and he recalled, “I think Bud got a severe treatment when he was over there. . . Bud didn’t remember too much, actually about his life prior to going to hospital because of the treatment they had given him. I remember there were times when I would mention names, and they would come back to him, like Sonny Stitt’s name.” He also recalled that Bud would almost never leave home except to go to a gig. Of course, McLean reaped benefits from his kind treatment of Powell. In 1949, Bud took the 17-year-old to Birdland soon after its December 15th opening and let him sit in. He also introduced him to Miles Davis in 1951 and Miles subsequently hired the youngster.
After coming out of Creedmoor in August of 1949, Powell had two good solid years of music on stage and in the studio, but in the summer of 1951 the fates once more frowned upon him as he again became overindulgent of alcohol. In June, he, Monk and three others were busted for marijuana possession and while he was incarcerated he freaked out and was again doused with buckets of ammoniated water. Sent to Bellevue, he was deemed to have delusions of grandeur after telling a psychiatrist he had composed hundreds of songs, and thus he was committed to Pilgrim State Hospital for eleven months of more electroshock treatments. He ended up again at Creedmoor where he was finally released on February 5th 1953 in the custody of Oscar Goodstein, manager of Birdland.
Goodstein was able to keep Bud busy with his trio playing clubs, mostly at Birdland some of which were broadcast, and studio sessions. During this time Powell was given drugs for schizophrenia but one of the effects was a muscle decay which showed up in a slowing of his piano technique. In 1959, after a stay in Kings County Hospital, Bud and his wife-to-be Buttercup moved to Paris and she took over the guardianship that had been attended by Goodstein. Like so many black artists, Bud loved the respect he received abroad and was kept busy with club dates in Paris and recording sessions. Buttercup took over his financial dealings and gave him enough drugs to keep him subdued.
Jazz fan Frances Paudras removed Bud from Buttercup’s
control and moved him into his home where, with the help of his girlfriend, Bud
was cured of tuberculosis which was brought on by years of neglect. Paudras took Powell back to New York in
August 1964 where he maintained a stay at Birdland all the way through October
10th when he failed to make the show. When Bud was found two days later with
friends in Brooklyn, Paudras wanted to take him back to Paris but Powell took
off once again, showing Paudras he might as well return home alone. In the summer of 1965, Powell’s liver gave
out and he died in his sleep on August 1st with his daughter Celia
at his bedside.
All
the tracks here came from the 4-disc Proper compilation Tempus Fugue-It
spanning from 1944 to 1950.
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Achieving popularity about the same time as Blind
Lemon Jefferson was Blind Blake, Florida-based
guitarist of whom extremely little is known.
On one recording, he stated his given name to be Arthur (he also
recorded as Blind Arthur), and his sponsors claimed him to be from
Jacksonville, Florida, a theory I am told is backed up by his accent on spoken
asides. What else is known is mostly about
the music, not the man.
Blake first recorded in the autumn of 1926 for
Paramount, and his initial success with West Coast Blues was the first (and
last) solo instrumental race record. He
had a more structured style than his contemporaries, which leads to the belief
that he was used to ensemble play, possibly in a jazz format. It is fairly certain that in the late
twenties he lived in Chicago, often playing house parties with pianists like
Charlie Spand (with whom he recorded Hastings Street and Police Dog Blues) or
Little Brother Montgomery. As the go-to
guy among Paramount's guitarists, he also performed and recorded with banjo
players Papa Charlie Jackson and Gus Cannon as well as Classic Blues singers Ma
Rainey and Ida Cox. Blake toured with
the vaudeville show Happy-Go-Lucky in parts of 1930 and 1931. He would release 79 titles over six years
until 1932 when Paramount ceased to exist, but unlike most Blues singers of the
time, never recorded a spiritual. His lack
of reappearance in the recording studios presumes his death shortly afterwards.
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The write-ups on Blind Willie Johnson and Blind Blake
were written a few years back for an ongoing project but came in very handy
today.
As I compiled these discs I had more music I wanted to
include and I put together a third disc if for no other reason than to include
one more long set of Jimmy Dawkins material taken from the two most recent albums
in my collection, 1994’s Blues and Pain on Wild Dog and the 1997 release Me, My
Gitar and the Blues for the Ichiban label.
Before
that, I put in a long set of some dynamite R&B by Nappy Brown. Whether or not Johnnie and Pete visit the
show will see how accurate my playlist is as I might remove some of the sets to
make room. Otherwise, it’s always nice to
have a backup disc ready for some occasion, possibly a fifth Wednesday when I
share the show with my 2-5pm alternate host Paul. I have included both of these sets on the
playlist just in case.
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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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I Wonder WhyTriple Trebles
I’m Good for Nothing
Night Rock
It Serves Me Right to Suffer
Breaking Down
Moon Man
Down So Long
Sweet Home Chicago
Jimmy Dawkins
Lord, I Just Can’t Keep From
Crying
John the RevelatorYou’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond
Let Your Light Shine on Me
Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right
If I Had My Way I’d Tear This Building Down
Church, I’m Fully Saved Today
I’m Gonna Run to the City of Refuge
Take Your Burden to the Lord and
Take a Stand
The Soul of a Man
Blind Willie Johnson
(Back Home Again
in) Indiana
Off MinorMad Bebop
Bombay
Serenade to a Square
Blues in Bebop
Donna Lee
Chasin’ the Bird
Cheryl
Buzzy
Cherokee
Celia
Tempus Fugue-It
Bud Powell
Hastings Street
Diddie Wah DiddieSouthern Rag
C.C. Pill Blues
Too Tight Blues #2
Blind Blake
I Ain’t Got It
Wes Cide BluzeA Love Like That
My Man Loves Me
Luv Sumbody
Made the Hard Way
Rockin’ D Blues
Gittar Rapp
Jimmy Dawkins
Don’t Be Angry
Two Faced Woman (and a Lying Man)
I’m in the Mood
That Man
Just a Little Love
Is It Really You?
Well, Well, Well Baby La
Open Up That Door
My Baby
A Long Time
Am I
Pleasin’ You
I’m Gonna Get You
Coal Miner
Little By Little
Nappy Brown
Right to Quit You
Blues and SoulBack to School
Gitar Jive
Me, My Guitar and the Blues
You Don’t Want Me
Down, Down Baby
Jimmy’s Bag
Tru Love
I’m Running
Tuff Girl
Jimmy Dawkins
