Out In The 1920s Blues Harp Night- “Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s”- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of old time blues harmonica player Junior Gillum performing his classic The Devil’s Blues.

CD Review

Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s, various artists, Yazoo Records, 1991

I have endlessly mentioned the old time pre-city blues (cities, mainly upriver Memphis, Chicago and Detroit) migration (and electrification) of the blues as it came out of the Mississippi Delta (and other southern ports of call like Alabama and North Carolina but centrally Mississippi burning country in jim crow days. Back in those days it was played, among other places like hellhole Parchman’s Farm prison and the like, in hard-bitten, hard drinking, hard lovin’ and hard repentin’ Saturday nights at juke joints. Joints which due to a little electrical problem (none) meant that you have to drink your whisky in the dark (or kind of), doing your lovin’, well you know what I mean, in the dark and your two-fisted fighting over some roaming –eyed woman in the darks as well.

What you also needed to do, if you were a musical performer, was set your instruments to that non-electric night. And hence the guitar (primitive or National Steel), the fiddle, and the instrument featured in this review, Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s,
had their heyday as weapons of choice for those who ventured into the 1920s blues night.

And this nice little treasure trove CD compilation gives you the best of the bunch who were recorded in those late 1920s and early 1930s days (before the great storm depression blew what little discretionary income there was all away) and one, if one so chooses can hear the long forgotten, for the most part, harmonica players, who influenced later legends like James Cotton, Junior Wells and, of course, Sonny Boy Williamson. The harmonica work is obviously as not as powerful as later when someone like Howlin’ Wolf practically devours the damn thing putting up against a jacked-up microphone on a song like “How Many More Years” but the basic configurations are in place here. Moreover this CD has a roll call of the best, including Jazz Gillum, Jaybird Coleman , and Deford Bailey. And, as always with a Yazoo production, an informative sheet with all kind of interesting facts about the performers and the milieu is included.

Out Of The Golden Age Of Electric Blues Harp Night- “Blues Harp”-A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Sonny Boy Williamson (number II but that is a long blues story) playing with Muddy Waters.

Blues Harp, various artists, Ace Records, 1999

Recently in a CD review of “Harmonica Blues: Great Harmonica Performances Of The 1920s And 1930s” I noted that the great harmonica players of that period were hamstrung (at least out in the country) by the lack of electricity in the Saturday juke joints and so the sound was somewhat tinny. However I also noted that the basic configurations produced in that period would be transformed by later harp greats into magic by electrification. And the album under review, Blues Harp, is proof positive of that assertion.

No question the post-World War II (and before too) black migration north to the cities and city industrial jobs (especially during the war) changed the slow back country beat music in profound ways. The electric “juice” provided at urban Saturday night (and Sunday morning, Sunday morning before repentance, okay) played a great role in bringing the harmonica (through close mouth association with the microphone) to its central place in the great golden age of the electric blues (part one) before rock and roll blew everyone away (for a while, and then we hungered back again for roots music, for that primordial connection with ancient times, and ancient lusts).

And they are all here, or almost all, the great ones that is, although the classic one that I keep coming back to is Howlin’ Wolf fooling around with
“How Many More Year” down at early years Newport Folk Festival when he practically inhales the harmonica. Wow. Crank up YouTube for that one. In the meantime the cast here will give you the role of honor in the golden age night, Sonny Boy Williamson, Junior Wells, James Cotton, Snooky Pryor, the Wolf Man, of course, and some others who history had previously left in the shadows, How many more years, indeed.

Once More On The Post-World War II Chicago Blues Explosion- The Work Of Master Blues Harmonica Player Sonny Boy Williamson

CD Review

Sonny Boy Williamson: His Best: 50th Anniversary Chess Edition, Sonny Boy Williamson, Chess Records, 1997

I hope I never get tired of reviewing the various blues greats that I have spent the better part of the last couple of years trying to highlight. And I probably won’t. However, one little problem tends to keep creeping up. Just when I think that I have hit all the blues highbinders that are possible to mention without just running out into the street and reviewing some itinerant street player along comes another one that it would be a sin, a mortal sin, not to mention. That is the case here with the work of Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Carter version, for those who want to get into that controversy over who the real Sonny Boy is, or was), master harmonica player, no, make that harmonica wizard.

One of the things that got added, significantly, when the blues went north to Chicago (and other such environs) and went electric in the post-World War II period was the increased use of the harmonica to drive the beat, or act as counter-point to it, as the case may be on any particular song. We all know, or should know, of the key role that Muddy Walters and his various bands played in this with the emergence of Little Walter and later James Cotton. Note should also be taken of Howlin’ Wolf’s role when he was in his prime, and drove everyone crazy with that voice and THAT harmonica he practically inhaled on things like “How Many More Years”. Well, how do you think these guys learned the tricks of the harmonica trade? One way or another at the feet of Sonny Boy.

And the proof? Well just take about ten out of the twenty selections in this 50th Anniversary of Chess Records edition. Perhaps any ten will do but here are my stick outs. Keep in mind that most of the lyrics are monstrously “politically incorrect” but “Keep It To Yourself,” “Your Funeral And Mine,” Down Child,” and, the well-known “Help Yourself” are a good sampler.

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Sonny Boy Williamson - Blue Bird Blues Lyrics

Artist: Sonny Boy Williamson

Album: Miscellaneous

Genre: Blues


Send "Blue Bird Blues" Ringtone to your Cell
Songwriters: John Lee Williamson


My bluebird, bluebird
Please take this letter down south for me
Now, bluebird, bluebird
Please take this letter down south for me
Now you can tell my baby, I'm up here in St. Louis
Oh, but I'm just as blue as I can be

Now, bluebird, when you get to Jackson
I want you to fly down on Shannon Street
Now, bluebird when you get to Jackson
I want you to fly down on Shannon Street
Well, but I don't want you to stop flyin'
Until you find Miss Lacey Belle, for me

Now bluebird, when you find Miss Lacey Belle
I want you to please give her my best regard
Now bluebird, when you find Miss Lacey Belle
Oh, give her my best regard
Well, that you can tell her I'm up here in St. Louis
But these times is awful doggone hard

Now bluebird, she may not be at home
But please, knock on her door
Now bluebird, she may not be at home
But please knock on her door
Well, but she might be right across the street
Visitin' her next door neighbor, you know