R.I.P. — Alan “The Blind Owl” Wilson (1943-1970)
Canned Heat guitarist, blues aficionado and mother earth lover, Alan “The Blind Owl” Wilson died on this date in 1970. Click here to read piece I wrote on Al for Hidden Track back in January.
“On The Road Again”:
Fleetwood Mac With Paul Butterfield — San Francisco, CA (6/9/1968)
I was listening to this again today, as I had my trusty iPod on shuffle, and I must say this is a smokin’ show. Don’t expect Lindsay and Stevie, this Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green, man. Translation, this is blooze. Pre-FM radio mega-stardom that is synonymous with Fleetwood Mac’s 70′s output was in the future and Peter Green was the man. He is truly one of the great, overlooked and almost forgotten guitarists. Green has struggled with schizophrenia for decades. This is a great place to start for unintiated.(This is a repost from August 2008)
CD#1
June 9, 1968 first set
01 [cuts in] Madison Blues 4:31
02 My BabyÕs Gone 6:00
03 My BabyÕs Skinny 4:48
04 Worried Dream 9:57
05 Dust My Broom 4:32
06 Got To Move 3:00
07 Worried Mind 4:41
08 instrumental 10:29
09 Have You Ever Loved A Woman? 7:58
10 Lazy Poker Blues 4:49
CD#2
June 9, 1968 second set 36:44
01 [cuts in] Stop MessinÕ ÔRound [with Paul Butterfield] 2:12
02 I Loved Another Woman [with Paul Butterfield] 7:03
03 I Believe [with Paul Butterfield] 5:17
04 The Sun Is Shining [with Paul Butterfield] 6:27
05 Long Tall Sally [with Paul Butterfield] 4:53
06 Willie & The Hand Jive 4:04
07 > Tuti Frutti 3:02
08 thanks by Peter Green, announcer band intros + crowd noise before encore 0:32
09 Ready Teddy [cut] 3:16
June 7 or 8, 1968 S.F. Carousel Ballroom
10 [cuts in] I Need Your Love So Bad 1:46
11 I Believe 4:59
12 Shake Your Moneymaker 9:12
13 Ready Teddy 2:30
14 Peter Green says thanks, announcer outro + crowd noise 0:19
Peter Green – guitar, vocals
John McVie – bass
Mick Fleetwood – drums
Jeremy Spencer – guitar, vocals
Paul Butterfield – harp (where noted)
Happy Birthday — Willie Dixon
Blues legend Willie Dixon was born on this date in 1915. Dixon penned such classics as “I Just Want To Make Love To You”, “I Ain’t Superstitous”, “Back Door Man”, “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Little Red Rooster”, amongst others. Dixon died in 1992, an inspiration to multiple generations, an often imitated/never duplicated style and a blues ambassador. Here’s he is doing “I’m Nervous”:
“Cars Hiss By My Window”
This is truly one of my favorite late period Doors songs. It has always sounding like skid row blooze with an extra helping of melancholy. Jim Morrison had always wanted to master the blues harp, but never could get the feel for the damn thing. You’ll hear him in early Doors shows wailing away, but all that effort produces awful, out of tune bleats. At the conclusion of this 4th song from L.A. Woman, Jim mimics a Little Walter harmonica line with his voice and just nails it. It’s almost as good as the real thing, which leads me to the video we’re featuring here of YouTube user “Charliemusslewhite” layin’ it down with a an excellent rendition of this almost 40 year old song.
R.I.P. — Bob “The Bear” Hite (1943-1981)
Canned Heat’s blues shouter and vocalist, Bob Hite died of a heart attack at the age of 36 on this date in 1981. Here’s Bob with the band in the summer of ’69:
Buddy Guy — “Money (That’s What I Want)”
Buddy Guy singing Bernie Madoff’s favorite tune, orignially written by Motown founder, Berry Gordy. From Festival Express.
Paul Butterfield — Sausalito, CA (12/30/73)
1 Walkin’ Blues
2 Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It
3 Broke My Baby’s Heart
4 Done a Lot of Wrong Things
5 He’s Got All the Whiskey
6 It All Comes Back
7 Down at the Bottom
8 Too Many Drivers
Happy Birthday — Bob “The Bear” Hite
Avid blues record collector, frontman, blues harpist and vocalist/shouter for Canned Heat was born on this day in 1945. Here’s “The Bear” with Canned Heat and Hef from “Playboy After Dark”.
Muddy Waters — San Francisco, CA (11/6/1966)
1. Chicken Shack 6:09
2. You Can’t Lose What You Never Had 4:27
3. Forty Days And Forty Nights 4:14
4. Baby Please Don’t Go 2:53
5. Thirteen Highway 11:18
6. Rock Me Baby 6:19
7. I’ll Go Crazy 2:49
8. Sweet Sixteen 7:21
9. Everything Is Alright 2:04
10. What’s The Matter With You 2:54
11. Don’t Answer the Door 6:19
12. Instrumental 1:12
Spotlight: Alan “The Blind Owl” Wilson
I wrote a piece for Hidden Track on Canned Heat founder and guitarist, Alan “The Blind Owl” Wilson, who lived a very unusual nd interesting life. Check it out here.
Bustle In Your Hedgerow — Chicago, IL (8/6/2006)
SET ONE
Song Remains the Same*, Ramble On, Immigrant Song $, What is and What Should Never Be, Travelling Riverside %, Four Stix, Bring it Back Home
SET TWO
Moby Dick, Over the Hills and Far Away, Fool in the Rain*, Heartbreaker, All of My Love, Good Times Bad Times > How Many More Times*, The Ocean
$. Mike Keneally on Guitar
%. Sarah Zimmerman
* Bayliss Vox
Bustle In Your Hedgerow with Sarah Zimmerman — Travelin’ Riverside Blues
Here Bustle In Your Hedgerow with the aid of Paul Green School of Rock’s Sarah Zimmerman just nail Robert Johnson cum Led Zeppelin’s “Travelin’ Riverside Blues”. Check out Sarah’s smokin’ slide guitar solo.
Skip James — “Devil Got My Woman”
Born in Mississippi when the 20th century was but two years old, Nehemiah “Skip” James was a blues musician, share cropper, bootlegger and preacher. Recording songs in the late 20′s and into the 30′s, James disappeared from the blues/music scene and drifted in and out of music until he was discovered in a hospital by a group of blues enthusiasts that included Henry Vestine of Canned Heat in 1964. Skip would pick where he left off in the 30′s, recording for the Vanguard label. The new blues revival of the 60′s was good for sales and James found a new generation of fans, including Eric Clapton, Dion & Deep Purple amongst others. The song, “Devil Got My Woman” was featured prominently in the 2000 film Ghost World and is proof of James’ timeless legacy. Here he is performing the song in 1966:
Muddy Waters — Greenvale, NY (10/18/1977)
Instrumental, Muddy Intro, Blues Had A Baby And Called It Rock, Hoochie Koochie Man, Baby Please Don’t Go, Kansas City, Caldonia, Everything Gonna Be Alright, Got My Mojo Working
Jimi Hendrix — Voodoo Chile
Jimi’s “Voodoo Chile” is the Mona Lisa of blues rock. With an impossibly wicked lick, the song draws you in instantly. Here’s some info on the song.
From Wiki:
“Voodoo Chile” is a song by The Jimi Hendrix Experience from the album Electric Ladyland. Recorded on May 2, 1968 at the Record Plant Studios in New York City, the recording session included Mitch Mitchell, drummer of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Steve Winwood of Traffic on B3 organ, and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane on bass duties. The song, basically a 15-minute blues jam, evolved into the final product over the course of an hour.
After many of the late night Electric Ladyland recording sessions, Hendrix and the band went to one of the New York City clubs to jam with whoever was there. One such jam at The Scene Club included Steve Winwood and Jack Casady. Noel Redding was not present as he had stormed out of the Record Plant studio earlier that evening. They spent the night playing “Voodoo Chile”, and when the club closed, Hendrix invited everyone back to the studio. At about 7 a.m. the next morning they began to formally record “Voodoo Chile”. It took only three takes and the final 15 minute version was Hendrix’s longest studio recording. The second take did not come out well, since a string broke. The first and second takes are used in “Voodoo Chile Blues” that is a combination of two takes released on Hendrix leftovers-album called Blues.
While “Voodoo Chile” sounds like a live recording, the crowd noise was actually recorded afterwards. Some twenty people were brought to the studio to record appropriate background noise.
Some notable video recordings:
From the BBC’s Happening’s For Lulu 1969:
Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1983:
Zakk Wylde and Slash from 1994:
Jimi again at Woodstock:
Ben Harper:
Rolling Stones with Eric Clapton — Little Red Rooster
One of the Stones’ great early blues covers. Written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin’ Wolf, the Stones recorded and released it in 1964 and had quite the little blues/pop hit in Great Britain, reaching #3. Here are the Stones playing at Atlantic City in the late 80′s. Roughly in the same period when Mick stole Eric’s “bird”. Eric was apparently in love with Carla Bruni and she couldn’t resist Mick’s charms. Well she’s now married to the French president, Sarkozy. Funny how things happen, eh?
Willie Dixon — Back Door Man
With Stephen Stills on guitar and Norton Buffalo on harp:
And for good measure, here’s Mr. Mojo Risin’ with his cronies doing it too.
The Doors — Crawling King Snake
An old John Lee Hooker song, The Doors played this song early in their career together and then pulled it out, dusted it off and recorded it for their last album, L.A. Woman. This song showcases Mr. Mojo Risin’ at his bluesy best with snakey guitar wails from Robby Krieger and tasteful, swaggering drumming provided by John Densmore. This was recorded and broadcast for Australian television in 1971, not long before Morrison’s shocking and untimely death in Paris. While much of The Doors’ catalogue is overplayed on classic rock stations around the globe every day, this is one of their tracks that always sounds fresh to me. Hooker himself stated that he dug The Doors’ interpretation of his song. Have a listen:
Eric Clapton — Eyesight To The Blind
An old Sonny Boy WIlliamson song Eric recorded for The Who’s 1975 film, Tommy. Check out Eric as a preacher at a church that worships Marilyn Monroe:
And here’s a clip of Pete and Eric from the early 90′s:
B.B. King — Happy Birthday
Riley B. King was born on this date in Indiola, MS, in 1925. Here’s the background on his guitar, Lucille:
In the mid-1950s, while B.B. was performing at a dance in Twist, Arkansas, a few fans became unruly. Two men got into a fight and knocked over a kerosene stove, setting fire to the hall. B.B. raced outdoors to safety with everyone else, then realized that he left his beloved $30 acoustic guitar inside, so he rushed back inside the burning building to retrieve it, narrowly escaping death. When he later found out that the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, he decided to give the name to his guitar to remind him never to do a crazy thing like fight over a woman. Ever since, each one of B.B.’s trademark Gibson guitars has been called Lucille.
Here he is on Ralph Gleason’s Jazz Casual in 1968:
Part two:
“The Thrill Is Gone” with Eric Clapton and Phil Collins:
Muddy Waters — Got My Mojo Workin’
From Wiki:
McKinley Morganfield (born April 4, 1913, Issaquena County, Mississippi; died April 30, 1983, Westmont, Illinois), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician and is generally considered “the Father of Chicago blues“. He is also the actual father of blues musicians Big Bill Morganfield and Larry ‘Muddy Junior’ Williams.
Considered one of the greatest bluesmen of all time, Muddy Waters was a huge inspiration for the British beat explosion in the 1960s[1] and considered by many to be one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.[2]
In 2004 Waters was ranked #17 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[3]
It’s Friday. I’ve got my mojo working.
Stevie Ray Vaughn — RIP
Stevie Ray Vaughn passed on this date in 1990.
From Wiki:
On August 25 and August 26, 1990, Vaughan and Double Trouble finished the summer portion of the In Step Tour with shows at Alpine Valley Music Theatre, just outside of East Troy, Wisconsin. The show also featured Robert Cray & His Memphis Horns, and Eric Clapton, who played the closing set, also bringing all the musicians back onstage for an encore jam.
Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton recalls his last conversation with Vaughan backstage. He then remembers Vaughan saying he had to call his girlfriend, Janna Lapidus, in Chicago, before heading out the door to the helicopters, which had been arranged for flight (through Omni Flights) by Skip Rickert, Double Trouble’s tour manager.
The musicians had expected a long bus ride back to Chicago. However, Vaughan was informed by a member of Clapton’s crew that three seats were open on one of the helicopters returning to Chicago with Clapton’s crew, enough for Vaughan, his brother Jimmie, and Jimmie’s wife Connie. It turned out there was only one seat left; Vaughan requested it from his brother, who obliged. At 12:44 a.m. pilot Jeffrey Browne guided the helicopter off the ground. Moments after takeoff the helicopter crashed into a ski slope and all five on board were killed. Although the crash occurred only 0.6 miles from takeoff, it went unnoticed by those at the concert site.
The search for the wreckage began at 5:00 a.m., finally being located two hours later with the help of its locator beacon.[7] The cause of the crash was believed to be pilot error.[8] [9]
Chris Layton and Jimmie Vaughan did not find out about the crash until they returned to their motel in Chicago. The following morning Jimmie Vaughan was called to identify the body of his brother. The coroner’s report stated that the cause of death was exsanguination caused by severing of the aorta. The severance was caused by high deceleration during crash impact.
Stevie Ray Vaughan is interred in the Laurel Land Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas
If you want to download a smokin’ SRV show click here. Download
Stevie Ray Vaughn — 6/19/1985
Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn providing serious heat on this SBD. These were the days when Stevie was dissolving cocaine in his whiskey for his morning “pick me up”, but the music was never better. Recorded in Morrison, CO — not too far from where the wife and I honeymooned last year.
