Photography – Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – the man who was there at the beginning of Rock.

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Opher

Photography – Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards – the man who was there at the beginning of Rock.

I saw Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards in Sheffield in 2009. I had just come back from Mississippi where I looked but could not find any Blues. Then I came home and T-Model Ford was playing in York and Dave in Sheffield.

I’d been all over Mississippi hunting out the old haunts, graves and places where the old Blues guys had played.

I visited all three of Robert Johnson’s graves.

Dave was an amazing guy. He was eighty four when I saw him and died two years later. He was full of life.

I had a chance to have a little chat with him after the show. Dave had been with Robert Johnson playing in that bar in Greenwood in 1938. He told me that Robert had been making eyes at the wife of the barman and had been poisoned with strychnine rat-poison. He became ill and had to go home but they hadn’t expected him to die.

He also told me that the real grave was at the back of the church.

It was incredible to meet a legend who had been there right at the beginning of modern day music. Without the Blues we wouldn’t have had Rock.

I just wonder what it would have been like if Robert Johnson had lived.

Mississippi Hill Country Blues – Howlin’ Wolf – West Point – RL Burnside & Junior Kimbrough.

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Opher

Mississippi Hill Country Blues – Howlin’ Wolf – West Point – RL Burnside & Junior Kimbrough.

I was too late for them all. RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Howlin’ Wolf were all dead. The club where Burnside used to play was burnt down. All I could do was some Blues archeology.

At least they had recognised the importance of one of their great alumni. There was a statue and museum to the great Howlin’ Wolf.

West Point was a typical Southern town

The plaque to Chester Burnett’s wife.

The statue to Howlin’ Wolf

The Howlin’ Wolf Museum. It was shut.

I bought a pile of Blues CDs at a shop along the road.

Murals on the wall showing scenes of yesteryear.

Howlin’ Wolf peering across the street at us.

If only I’d been here twenty years before or fifty years before. I could smell blues in the air. But I couldn’t see or hear it.

And more R@B – Elmore James – Shake Your Money Maker

Posted on December 11, 2019 by Opher

And more R@B – Elmore James – Shake Your Money Maker

The great Elmore James – the undisputed king of the slide guitar. Nobody has ever got close to that slide sound (though I love Jeremy Spencer dearly).

I’ve heard some people say its about shaking dice. I don’t think so. Shaking that money maker can be seen on every dance floor.

More R@B for Kathy – Fleetwood Mac – Rattle Snake Shake

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Opher

More R@B for Kathy – Fleetwood Mac – Rattle Snake Shake

Fleetwood Mac, with the brilliant Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer and then Danny Kirwan, always played locally. They were fantastic live. Peter was the best guitarist in that style and a writer of some brilliant songs.

More R@B for Tobes – Jimmy Reed – Ain’t That lovin’ You Baby

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Opher

More R@B for Tobes – Jimmy Reed – Ain’t That lovin’ You Baby

This is the great Jimmy Reed who invented that chugging beat. He was a great performer. I only saw him once, and yes, he was remarkably drunk. But he was also remarkably cheerful and absolutely brilliant.

This is Ain’t that Lovin’ You Baby – one of his many best. Elvis covered this one.

This is Shame Shame Shame – another great one – The Merseybeats did a great cover of this one!

Dr Feelgood – Roxette – Another genius R@B track

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Opher

Dr Feelgood – Roxette – Another genius R@B track

Dr Feelgood were an early seventies Pub Rock band who specialised in R@B just like the Alligators. Wilko Johnson on guitar was amazing. Lee Brilleaux unfortunately died. But what a great band.

This is what happens when a bunch of Canvey Island guys do R@B.

The Mississippi Blues Trail – A bit of Elmore, BB and Sonny Boy

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Opher

The Mississippi Blues Trail – A bit of Elmore, BB and Sonny Boy

The Mississippi Blues trail is a brilliant way to discover Mississippi. It takes you into the back of beyond and to strange parts of town. You pass the fields the slaves used to work in, the dives they used to play in and the street corners they used to busk on. By the time you’ve finished you’ve got a real feel for the place.

I saw Big Joe Williams perform in the late sixties on one of those Blues packages they brought across. He was on the same bill as Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, James Cotton and a few others. He went down so well that they couldn’t get him off stage.

You found the markers out in the middle of nowhere.

Back in the early days the people like Jimmie Rodgers and Woody Guthrie would mix quite freely with the black singers. Musicians seemed free of the evils of apartheid. Jimmie did a lot of blues numbers.

Trumpet records recorded my hero Elmore James (as well as people like Sonny Boy Williamson). I found it quite thrilling to stand where he had recorded a lot of those searing slide guitar riffs that I love so much.

Both Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson performed at the Alamo Theatre. A lot of those places were run down and neglected. But then they ripped the cavern in Liverpool down too. These politicians are fools. We should respect our heritage.

This was close to the place where BB King used to busk and record.

This was the site in Natchez where the Night Club burnt down killing so many people. Howlin’ Wolf sang about it in the song Natchez Burning.

The North Mississippi Allstars – Shimmy – Shake ’em on Down

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Opher

The North Mississippi Allstars – Shimmy – Shake ’em on Down

So Tobes asked me if there was anything around today who were young and doing anything as dynamic and exciting as that early R@B.

Yes there is. There is the North Mississippi Allstars. They are steeped in it

This is Shake ’em on Down

And this is Shimmy

They are amazing!!!

Bo Diddley – 1965 – Bo Diddley – video

Posted on December 7, 2019 by Opher

Bo Diddley – 1965 – Bo Diddley

This was Bo Diddley a little past his best in 1965 but still amazing. Watch the girl dance in the high-heels while playing the guitar!

Bo was the real stuff!

Photography – The Mississippi Blues Trail – American heritage

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Opher

Photography – The Mississippi Blues Trail – American heritage

Americans don’t seem to value the rich Blues heritage that sits on their own doorstep. Despite the fact that nearly all modern music stems from the roots of the Blues, R&B and Jazz that came out of Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee (Mixed in with a bit of Country and a few other flavours) they ignore it. If you talk to most Americans about the significance of Charlie Patton they will likely say – ‘Who?’. So I was heartened to find they had gone to the bother of putting up blue plaques all other the place commemorating where all the great Blues Singers worked, lived, played and died. It gave all us mad Blues lovers a reason to gallivant all over the countryside hunting them down.

I was a little chastened when looking for Son House’s plaque I stopped at a big tourist centre, right close to where it was, to ask and they’d never heard of Son House, the Blues Trail or anything to do with it. Asking around it seemed like it was mainly a bunch of fanatical Englishmen like me who were the only ones going round.

Great shame.

This was Bo Diddleys plaque in McComb. One of my favourite guys. He used to busk in the street where this plaque was situated.

This is a national steel guitar in the Delta Blues museum. The type many old Blues guys played in the days before amplification because it made a loud sound. I love the sound of a bottleneck guitar.

This was the monument to Robert Johnson in Hazlewood

This is the High Street in Yazoo – One of the Great Blues labels of the day.

The fabled Highway 61 – along which all the Blues guys travelled.

Muddy Waters cabin – re-erected in the Delta Blues Museum (I wish they’d left it where it was on the plantation).

A plaque to Son House (I think that was in Clarksdale)

The Riverside Hotel where everybody stayed. It used to be a hospital for Blacks and is where Bessie Smith died.

Sonny Boy Williamson 2’s grave (Willie Rice Miller) outside Tutwiler

Sonny Boy’s grave was hard to find – in the middle of nowhere, set back off the road.

One of Robert Johnson’s supposed graves (according to Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards not the right one)

The Blue Café – a Blues Joint where it all happened (And still does)

Blues