'Come on Rock Little Girl' - Smokey Smothers

I played this song early in the night at Steel City Blues Festival 2017 before the Cash Box Kings took the stage. Joe Nosek of the Cash Box Kings heard the song, and came over all excited because I'd played a Smokey Smothers song. He was promptly disappointed that I didn't know more about this artist, and proceeded to provide a wonderful recommendation for more Smokey Smothers and his album Smokey Smothers Sings the Backporch Blues. I also highly recommend everyone give this a listen.

Fun Fact: the original LP of this album is rare, so if it's hiding somewhere in a relative's or your own collection you have a several hundred dollar vinyl on your hands. 

I appreciate how much this whole album lags, and this song specifically. The voice is always just behind the beat, in danger of sliding to the next one. Freddie King is playing guitar on this album. In trying to describe this song the phrase "in the pocket" seems the most appropriate. 

Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers was born in Mississippi and relocated to Chicago in 1946. He was a member of Howlin' Wolf's backing band and worked with powerhouse musicians like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, and Willie Dixon. He had a younger brother called Little Smokey Smothers, which if course causes no confusion. 

Smokey in the 50s formed a Muddy Waters tribute band, which would play in Chicago when Muddy Waters was on the road. His most famous album is Smokey Smothers Sings the Backporch Blues, which he released in 1962. He didn't record a full album again until the 1980s that saw the release of Got My Eye on You. He died in July of 1993. 

Joe of the Cash Box Kings mentioned that they might be putting together a tribute concert in September of this year for Smokey Smothers. I'm looking for some information on that, hoping it to be true. 

Other Versions:
Come on Rock Little Girl - The Mannish Boys

Sources:
http://www.allmusic.com/album/sings-the-backporch-blues-mw0000225986
https://www.last.fm/music/Smokey+Smothers/+wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_%22Big_Smokey%22_Smothers
https://secondhandsongs.com/work/123196/all

'The Deacon' - Gerry Hundt

Reflecting on BluesSHOUT this weekend I am reminded how lucky we are in Chicago in the musicians we have who play for dancers. The band line up for SHOUT this year featured all local artists. For me, a particular highlight this year was the Sunday night band, the Gerry Hundt Trio with guest Corey Dennison. Gerry Hundt has been a staple sound of the Chicago Blues scene, both for dancers and the larger music scene as a whole. He has played for Bluetopia many times, sat in with the Cash Box Kings for previous SHOUTs, and helped put together groups last minute when other bookings have not worked out. He was also the band leader for SHOUT this year, helping organize and arrange the groups that performed.

For this particular feature I'm highlighting "The Deacon", which is the song playing in the linked video. It is the 2nd song of the Gerry Hundt Trio's EP, called GHT the EP, recorded in 2012. This is my favorite song off the EP. It has a great energy and a 'party' feel. It grooves hard with Gerry leading on electric guitar, Randy Nelson on bass, and Ralph Kinsey holding down drums. The song doesn't change a great deal over its course, but has enough swells and dips in energy to drive a dancer. It's a hard tune not to always DJ and overplay. To me, it's just that fun.

Gerry Hundt himself has an interesting background for a Chicago blues musician. According to rrstar.com, he picked up guitar after an injury kept him from playing varsity soccer his junior hear of high school (he was also the team captain). In college, studied Latin and Greek, along with some music theory. Hundt plays a variety of instruments, recording his first album Since Way Back on the mandolin. He also has a one man band set up with harmonica, guitar, and various percussion (and an album recorded with that kit).

Hundt introduces kids to the history and sound of blues music though the Blues in the School programs. In the rrstar.com piece he is quoted:

“Kids today only hear from people that blues is bad,” Hundt said. “In reality, the music relies on a principle that goes back to Aristotle — a purging of emotions by means of that emotion. You hear about what a person is experiencing emotionally because you go through it with them in the song. Blues is more about hope than sadness.”

Gerry Hundt regularly plays at Kingston Mines in Chicago, and also with the Corey Dennison Band. They have been nominated for a 2017 Blues Music Award for Best Emerging Artist (results to be released in May). The Corey Dennison Band also has an album that includes "The Deacon". I highly recommend picking up this album (I got a copy at SHOUT).

Gerry Hundt Trio live at Bluetopia

Other versions:
Instrumental Version, with slight rhythmic differences

The Corey Dennison Band - The Deacon

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Hundt
http://www.rrstar.com/entertainmentlife/20170304/rockford-native-gerry-hundt-shares-blues-with-new-generation
http://www.coreydennison.com/

'Early in the Morning' - C.W. Stoneking

"Well I'm never goin back, to that country again,
If I live for a long, long time,
Where my guitar played itself, leanin by the wall,
It give me a worried mind"

The first song by C.W. Stoneking I remember hearing was The Marching of the Drum, a song that was popular in Ann Arbor for ballroomin' (also elsewhere, but I'll keep to immediate experiences). I always assumed, based on the 'faded' quality of the recording that C.W. Stoneking was some obscure artist who recording in the 40s. As usual, my initial assumptions were incorrect. The ragged, weary voice and mournful plucking of the guitar that comes through on 'Early in the Morning' is actually that of a contemporary Australian. He varies how he records his music to get that almost stereo-typically vintage sound of his album Jungle Blue, of which 'Early in the Morning' belongs.

I enjoy 'Early in the Morning' for two reasons. The first, it is simply a unique song to dance to, and secondly, it falls under a 'crossover' category in my DJ brain. As a dancer, I appreciate this song for its overall simplicity with rhythmic subtlety. Instruments come in almost in a round and the song ends the same way, with first the vocals, percussion, bass, and finally the guitar fading into silence. In my own movement this inspires light traveling, moments of suspension, and if my partner is feeling it with me isolation exploration with the banjo line.

As a DJ, I appreciated the versatility this sound brings to the floor. The picking in the banjo keeps a delta/country feel to my ear pervasive throughout the song. However, the bass line is a tuba-possibly sousaphone-chugging underneath the voice and guitar. These elements combine to make a song that allows me to shift gears to go deeper in a delta/country blues feel, or Jazzier as the case may be. It's a song that is hard not to DJ too much, lest it become stale.

C.W. Stoneking himself, as said before, is Australian. He was first introduced to blues by rummaging through his father's music collection and listening to Living With The Blues, an early blues compilation album. In the biography section of his website, Stoneking writes:

“When I first heard it I thought it was kinda funny music”, he told a Dutch interviewer a few years ago, “because it was so deconstructed and not really adhering to any rules that I’d been told music [should] fit into. And the more I listened to it, I just liked it more and more.”

C.W. Stoneking received many ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Award nominations for Jungle Blues', eventually winning 'Best Blues and Roots Album' for Jungle Blues.

I was reminded of the Blues Dance World Podcast episode on the history of BluesSHOUT with Sara Cherny. She was musing on how blues dancing and the music has spread from the United States and been embraced the world over. Larger portions of the attendance of BluesSHOUT are made up of international dancers from European countries, Australia, and South Korea to name a few. Blues music and dance is appreciated the world over, and a young Australian really digging into that sound fits into the larger pattern.

I couldn't find any covers of this song, as it is an original composition.

Sources:
http://www.allmusic.com/song/early-in-the-mornin-mt0018683736
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._W._Stoneking
http://www.cwstoneking.com/
http://bluesdanceworld.com/2016/12/31/january-1st-2017-blues-dance-world-podcast-season-2-ep-09-a-decade-of-shout/

The Blues Collins Shim Sham

The Blues Collins Shim Sham

The swing dance world has a number of line dances/choreography, the most famous being the Shim Sham. The Shim Sham itself has a number of variations. A popular variation with Balboa dancers is the Dean Collins Shim Sham, created by (you guessed it) Dean Collins. This version differs from Frankie Manning's largely in aesthetic. The DC Shim Sham looks like a line dance a classic Balboa dancer would do. There are more foot fans, less movement in the hips, the body is treated more as a whole unit with no asymmetries.

For a performance in Chicago I learned Nick William's Dean Collins Shim Sham styling and interpretation. I felt like I could immediately connect with a partner in a close embrace Balboa connection and still do the footwork. I wondered what a more 'blues-y' version of this would look like. While learning this routine, there was a moment while we were practicing it slowly (about 135bpm) when sliding into the whole break I let my hip go, creating an angular line. I began to play with changing the lines and the grounding of the whole break. This inspired me to try to create an aesthetically blues version of this dance. This was in part and exercise to answer the question "At what point does this look like blues?". I reference this activity in my piece on movement cross-training.

I enlisted the help of some dancer friends and we hammered out a structure and refined months later. We had some initial challenges. The biggest one; the Shim Sham is a jazz dance with a different musical structure than a twelve bar blues. We set the dance to 'Come on Home' by Eddie Boyd. We ended up modifying our phrases to include another four bars so we were not splitting phrases with movement ideas. Another was the jazz steps happening on the 8. Some of the steps we kept, but for the Fishtails these happened on one. Aesthetically overall we considered grounding, angularity, asymmetries, Instead of stomp offs, for example, we did around the worlds (or four corners, I'm not sure of the nomenclature there). We Strut out to the end of the song. As a humorous homage, I dubbed it the Blues Collins Shim Sham.

I had a great deal of fun creating this. It was challenging at times, feeling like we were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, but once we settled on the music there were serendipitous vocal queues in the song that just felt right. For example, 'one more time' when we are on our last whole break into the let twists. Or 'walk with me' when we get into the half-breaks (modified with a hip hitch and drag). I think it is a useful vehicle for improvisation grounded in a shared movement idea. Simple enough to learn, simple enough to variate, but continually interesting.

Pictured in the video left to right:
Tim O'Neil
Ross Blythe
Grace Jones-Taylor
Olivia Yu
Laney Barhaugh

Come On Home - Eddie Boyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRy3XuLMDTg

'I'm a Bad Luck Woman' - Memphis Minnie

I'm a Bad Luck Woman - Memphis Minnie

I was working on a post about C.W. Stoneking (still in the works), but in researching his influences I saw he credited the music of Memphis Minnie as inspiration. My library, as it turns out, has been sadly lacking her music. A few hours of listening and purchasing later, I've addressed that problem. The limited sample I've listened to so far is her earlier work. Later, as blues became amplified in Chicago, she started playing with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic. She was one of the musicians who changed her sound as the technology and the times/tastes changed.

I like her song "I'm a Bad Luck Woman" for it's energy. It has an infectious groove (and mostly because I've been practicing a lot of Struttin' recently I want to Strut to this song). The lyrics I found pretty humorous, sort of tongue and cheek about a lack of success in a relationship. Though I do not know who her accompaniment is here, I think it is her playing with one other musician to help create the driving beat.

About the artist herself, Memphis Minnie was born Lizzie Douglass in 1897. Her recording career spanned the 1920s to 50s, recording for labels Decca, Vocalion, Okeh, Bluebird, and Columbia Records. She recording over 200 sides during that time.

She ended up in Chicago in the 1930s. She and Big Bill Broonzy had a cuttin' contest. Broonzy is often cited as a one of the key figures in 20th century blues music. Memphis Minnie and Big Bill Broonzy each played a couple of their songs, and at the end she was judged to be the winner. She and Broonzy became friends and would often play together locally and also tour.

She would be in and out of Chicago, living alternatively in Indianapolis and Detroit in the 40s, and returning to Chicago in the 50s. As mentioned in the beginning, she started playing electric guitar in the early 40s. She would play at Chicago's 708 club, often joined by Big Bill Broonzy, Snooky Pryor, and/or Sunnyland Slim.

She would move to Mississippi in the 50s, as demand for her music began to decrease. She played for Big Bill Broonzy's funeral, was active in the local radio stations, and encouraging women to pursue blues music. She died in 1973 after suffering a stroke. Bonnie Raitt would later provide a headstone for Memphis Minnie, in 1996.

I think it's telling that a website devoted to her history poses the question:

Why has this musician, with her enormous body of recordings, who was well-loved by the Black blues audiences of the ’30s and ’40s been comparatively ignored by later, whiter audiences? Perhaps it’s because Memphis Minnie doesn’t fit the myth of the young, tragic, haunted blues man and she is too complex of a character to be easily marketed. She shaped a life very different from the limited possibilities offered to the women of her time. She lived a long life, was at her best in middle age, and would spit tobacco wearing a chiffon ball gown.

More fun than reading my synopsis, Del Rey wrote a song called 'Memphis Minnie' that catalogues Minnie's life. It is definitely worth a listen.
Memphis Minnie - Del Rey

Other Version:
I'm a Bad Luck Woman - Emiliana Torrini

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Minnie
http://memphisminnie.com/
http://www.mtzionmemorialfund.org/p/memphis-minnie.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bill_Broonzy

Everybody's Got To Change Sometimes - Barrelhouse Chuck

"Sooner or later
We all goin' down
in that lonesome ground"

Barrelhouse Chuck died on December 12th, 2016. I wanted to highlight one of my favorite songs he did as a way to acknowledge the enjoyment his music brought. It seemed appropriate that my favorite song by Barrelhouse Chuck (born Charles Goering) has the line about going down into the ground.  I always loved the force of this song, the power behind the percussive piano hits, the voice that carried throughout. The song itself is a cover, possibly of Sleepy John Estes' 1938 song of the same name (he is listed as the artist on the track information). I found another version by Taj Mahal (both versions are linked below). I enjoy the version Barrelhouse Chuck wrote because he drops the tempo, pulls in more instruments, and the piano is front and center. It's an emotionally full song that doesn't let up until the final chords ring out and the band goes silent.

The first time I met Barrelhouse Chuck was at the Winter Blues Intensive in 2015. There was a panel discussion about blues music: past, present, and future. Barrelhouse Chuck tottered in (I found out later he was fighting cancer) to sit along side Katherine Davis and Mud Morganfield. They talked openly and candidly about their careers, how they got to be blues musicians, and what they thought the future of the genre looked like. After the panel the three of them played and sang a few songs for us, and Barrelhouse Chuck came alive. Whatever hesitancy he had walking vanished when he played with evident and infectious joy.

And he was like that in person. I bought one of his CDs at the panel for him to sign and shared that my favorite song off one of his early albums was "Everybody's Got to Change Sometimes", though I didn't remember the title and could only sing the refrain back to him. He knew it immediately, his face lighting up, and he finished the next verse. "Oh, that's off my first album!" he said excitedly.

In the panel he was a good storyteller, too. He talked about following Muddy Waters around Florida, listening to his music, and eventually opening for him as well. He covered a Muddy song at one show. Afterwards, Muddy came backstage demanding to know who the piano player was. Nervous, Barrelhouse Chuck owned up. Muddy smiled and said, "you play my shit good".

Before that point, he learned to play blues piano from Sunnyland Slim, and eventually the artists Pinetop Perkins, Blind John Davis, Detroit Junior and Little Brother Montgomery. Barrelhouse was always quick to point out who he had learned from, who his influences were. We were fortunate in Chicago to have him play for Bluetopia on a couple of occasions, or get to see him Wednesday nights at Barrelhouse Flat.

Barrelhouse Chuck maintained a presence in the Chicago music scene in addition to tours and other projects. In February 2008, he assisted in recording the soundtrack for the film Cadillac Records. He had numerous appearances at the Chicago Blues Festival. In 2012 he played at the "Howlin' for Hubert" concert at the Apollo Theater. Some accolades included nominations for a Blues Music Award in the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Category, and his 2014 album 'Drinking from Town to Town' received a nomination for Traditional Blues Album of the Year.

Other versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duZdbO7v40g - Taj Mahal (Latin blues)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg9a71tQdMI - Sleepy John Estes (acoustic) - possibly Original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE_ublgroXo - Eric Clapton

Sources:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/reich/ct-barrelhouse-chuck-obit-ent-1214-20161213-column.html
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/barrelhousechuck8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrelhouse_Chuck
http://www.allmusic.com/album/salute-to-sunnyland-slim-mw0000242533