Hoodoo Man Blues - Junior Wells

 

Provenance: I'm still chugging through my Toronto thrift store purchases.

Review: As a long-time blues aficionado this album should be catnip, putting the spotlight on estimable harmonica-jockey Junior Wells, and featuring my close relative Buddy Guy as a sideman.

I have had more than one friend complain that blues music doesn't feature enough variety to hold the attention, and I can grok that. Formally, most blues music (with notable exceptions) follows a few set templates in terms of chord progressions, scales and even subject matter. How many times have you heard trains a-rollin' or a woman stepping out on her man?

That being the case, I think one of the keys to creating memorable blues music is the way you play the damn thing. Muddy Waters imbued his with an irresistibly sly boastfulness, Freddie King aimed for the bleachers with buzzsaw guitar soloing and Howlin' Wolf sounded like a one-man demolition team; seriously, his opening cry to 'Smokestack Lightning' sounds like a cave-in at a coal mine. Like any pursuit with a set of rules to be observed, the joy can be found in the manner with which the game is played, or subverted. 

So now we come to Hoodoo Man Blues, the first solo album credited to Junior Wells. Already a veteran sideman, having replaced Little Walter in Muddy Waters' band in the 1950s, Wells assembled a crack band in an attempt to recreate the hot sound of an electric Chicago blues band. In doing so, he birthed a masterpiece, echoes of which could be heard in popular music for decades to come.

Firstly, it must be said that Wells is not the greatest vocalist around; he's probably not even the best singer in the band (that accolade, aka 'The Michael Anthony Award', going to Buddy Guy); but he was no slouch on the blues harp. It's a testament to the supreme level of musicianship that the whole confection was recorded in two days, and that takes into account amplifier issues that led Guy to playing some of his guitar parts through a Leslie organ speaker. Can you imagine that happening today? Ain't it wild that some bands, not too further down the line, would spend a week in the studio trying to capture a decent snare sound only to release a load of old pony?

As a consequence, Hoodoo Man Blues has an electrifying live sound to it. Stylistically it treads the fine line between sophisticated and tough (like the best Chicago blues does), Guy's lacework guitar sparking against Wells' rough-house harmonica. Which, by the way, isn't to say that Guy couldn't land a few stingers himself; a couple of his licks in 'Hoodoo Man Blues' and 'We're Ready' are as sharp and clean as a wet shave from a Turkish barber. I think it needs to be emphasised just how good the playing is here; pocket drumming, locked-in bass and guitar work that possesses the neatness of prestidigitation. 

So how influential was this joint? The ripples can be heard in acts like The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rory Gallagher, early J Geils Band and, especially to my set of lugholes, Dr Feelgood. The combination of lean orchestration, musical adroitness and aggression would solidify (and perhaps, falter) in the blues-rock sound of the late 1960s into the 1970s; a good example is Ten Years After's supersonic take-off of the Wells' band's version of 'Good Morning Schoolgirl', which booms with a proto-metal heaviness but also contains the seeds of self-indulgence that would lead to dead-ends and sclerosis. None of that is evident on Hoodoo Man Blues - a smoky, punchy, vital testament.

Best Of The Stray Cats: Rock This Town - Stray Cats

 

Provenance: Yet another from my Toronto haul. Never been a huge fan of Stray Cats but this was cheap and I'm partial to a little rockabilly now and then.

Review: Stray Cats fall into that weird category of purist revivalist music that saw acts like Sha Na Na and Showaddywaddy gain footholds in the culture at various times, despite no real explanation for it. True, the 1980s did see some of the OG rock 'n' rollers hit chart gold as their music was exhumed for movies and adverts; am I underestimating the power of nostalgia?

Unlike their near contemporaries The Cramps, Stray Cats play it straight. Which, on the one hand, is admirable, but on the other makes for a fairly monochrome listening experience. The vast majority of the tracks on Best of... are built from a foundation of bass, drums and guitar; I almost punched the air when, two-thirds of the way through, I heard a fucking saxophone. Oh, and Slim Jim Phantom (top tier name by the way) plays a drum kit consisting of snare, bass, hi-hat and crash cymbal, a minimalist approach that no doubt played well to the greasers and ensured no Neil Peart style histrionics.

This short, ten track compilation kicks off with the Stray Cats' most recognisable, and arguably best, song, 'Rock This Town', which is a genuine shack-shaker that makes all the right moves. The next track though - '(She's) Sexy & 17' (gender in parentheses, presumably so nobody gets the wrong idea) is a little noncey, in a Chucky Lee Byrd way. Also, two tracks in and I'm bored of Brian Setzer's weedy voice. I'm almost bored by his guitar playing, which trades creativity for period fidelity. Luckily, numero tres is a great doo-wop number called 'I Won't Stand In Your Way', which reveals that Setzer is much better playing the sap than the tough.

A shame, then, that a chunk of the Stray Cats oeuvre which appears here is predicated on them being a bunch of flick-knife wielding alley bruisers. Setzer's lapdog yelp doesn't cut it on 'Stray Cat Strut' or 'Rumble In Brighton', not even when backed up by his two goons, who look like they have acromegaly or rickets or perhaps both. 

The collection reaches a nadir on 'Gene & Eddie' (that's Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochrane to you plebeians), a song that both quotes from and utterly mangles the work of those two doomed genii. It's the kind of concept I tend to despise, with the exception of ABC's 'When Smokey Sings' and maybe Nils Lofgren's 'Keith Don't Go' (depending on which way the wind is blowing at the time). Both hagiographic and tautological, just once I'd like one of these 'tribute' songs to give their subject a proper shoeing. Actually, Stray Cats shouldn't have bothered at all, considering that a few years beforehand, Ian Dury & the Blockheads had produced the far superior 'Sweet Gene Vincent', which deals with the legend in a much more interesting and playful way.

There's not a huge amount that's wrong with this, especially if you like wearing leather jackets, fashioning your hair like a duck's arse and pretending that slapback echo is the pinnacle of music production. Sure, at one point they nick a line from a Lazy Lester tune, but that's the business. Sometimes Lee Rocker walks up the neck of his upright bass, sometimes down it. Slim Jim speeds it up and slows it down. Brian Setzer plays his Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore riffs with aplomb. The Best of... is a slick, adroit bit of graverobbing, which has its moments but is too in thrall to rock 'n' roll's golden age to be more than a curio.