When The Blues Was Dues- The Classic Alligator Records Compilation

CD Review

By Zack James

Classic Alligator Records, many blues artists 

Long before Seth Garth became back in the day, the 1960s day, the music critic for the now long gone The Eye published in those day out of Oakland, California he had been bitten by the blues bug. Of course in the 1960s if one was to be a successful and relevant music critic one had to concentrate on the emerging and then fading folk music minute (of which the blues was seen as a sub-set of the genre especially the country blues wings with the likes of Skip James, Son House, Bukka White, and Mississippi John Hurt) and then post-British invasion and the rise of the counter-cultural movement what was called “acid” rock. So Seth’s blues bug, except for an occasional sneak-in was cut short by the needs of his career. Even then though Seth would keep up with the various trends coming out of places like Chicago and Detroit and of the artists who had formed his first interests.  

Strangely Seth had come to his love of the blues almost by accident. Back in the 1950s he had been like many teenagers totally devoted to his transistor radio to shutout the distractions of parents and siblings around the house. In those days though he was drawn to the fresh air jail breakout of rock and roll, guys like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry. One Sunday night though almost like a ghost message from the radio airwaves the station he usually listened to WMEX was drowned by a more powerful station from Chicago, WABC. The show Be-Bop Benny’s Blues Hour (actually two hours but that was the title of the show). The first song Hound Dog Taylor’s The Sky Is Crying. He was hooked, hooked mainly because in those days the blues coming out of Chicago sounded like a very primitive version of rock, like maybe it had something to do with that beat in his head whenever a serious rock song came on WMEX like Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Rock and Roller. He couldn’t always get the Chicago station on Sunday night, something to do with those wind patterns but he was smitten.

Like a lot of things including his later interest in folk music and acid rock Seth always wanted to delve into the roots of whatever trend he was writing about. That was how he found out that a lot of the songs that he heard on the Be-Bop Benny show were the genesis of rock. Also that rock had eclipsed the blues as the be-bop new thing leaving many of the most popular blues artists, overwhelming black artists, behind to pick up the scraps of the musical audience (only to be “discovered” later by some of the more thoughtful rock stars like the Stones just as the old time country blues artists from the South had been “discovered” by folk aficionado in their turn).  

Seth also dug into the technical aspects of the industry, who was producing the music. Those where the days when there were many small, small by today’s mega-standards, essentially mom and pop record companies producing blues material. In Chicago, with the huge migration of blacks from the South during the previous two generations there were a myriad of labels. But two stuck out, two were the ones who grabs the very best artists around Maxwell Street and made them stars, from the many one hit wonders to classic stars like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King. 

Of course most people have heard of those artists who worked out of the Chess Record label. But the other big label, the one under review, Alligator, also produced a shew of stars. So that very first night Seth had heard the legendary Hound Dog Taylor doing The Sky Is Crying he was under contract with Alligator. For more artists check out this two CD compilation of those others who also graced that label. Then you will be up to date on the genesis of the Chicago blues explosion that changed blues from acoustic to electric back in the day.