Although it’s been decades now since the Blues Brothers Band played together in its original and most popular form (with the death of John Belushi, a.k.a. “Joliet Jake” Blues, in 1982), the Blues Brothers legacy has carried on through a variety of mediums
that have included a movie sequel, reunion concerts, a musical, an official Blues Brother Revue stage show about which we told you a few years back, and several recordings, including this recent offering featuring original members Steve “The Colonel” Cropper (guitar) and Lou “Blue Lou” Marini (sax), original band leader Paul “The Shiv” Shaffer (piano), a number of other former members, and recognizable friends of the band such as guitarist Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Eddie Floyd, and Dr. John “The Nite Tripper”, with Marini commenting about the album: “We really wanted to honor our history and to include some of our favorite musicians that we’ve worked with and loved over the years.”
A mostly live studio recording that captures everyone playing together (on largely first or second takes), The Last Shade of Blue Before Black (Severn Records) offers a variety of horn-filled tracks in the tradition of the Blues Brothers, including solid and timeless renditions of such blues classics as Jimmy Reed’s “Baby, What You Want Me to Do”, “I Got My Mojo Working” (Muddy Waters), and Willie Dixon’s “Don’t Go No Further” mixed with the modern sound and lyrics of songs like the swaying “21st Century Baby” (“she’s always bringing me the blues”) written and sung by Rob “The Honeydripper” Paparozzi, soul numbers like Dan Penn, Rick Hall and Oscar Franks’ “You Left the Water Running” and Floyd and Cropper’s “On a Saturday Night”, and funky tracks like “Itch and Scratch”, Floyd’s “Don’t Forget About James Brown”, and Brown’s “Sex Machine”, the latter song featuring Shaffer on vocals and piano.
So we were of course pleased to learn about the release of International Blues Challenge #33, a collection featuring finalists from the 2017 competition that, like the inaugural edition, does an excellent job of showing that the blues is still very much alive and well and in many diverse forms.
From the seducing sway of songs like “You Upset My Mind” (Jimmy Reed), “Same Old Blues” (Magic Sam) and “Sho Nuff I Do” (Elmore James), to swinging instrumentals like “Edgier”, “Teenage Beat” (Little Walter) and the opening “Bonus Boogie”, and breezy numbers like “From the Bottom” (Sonny Boy Williamson II) and the Sugar Ray & the Bluetones-style, horns-accented “No Love in My Heart” (Elmore James), everything here is, well, fabulous. But the tracks that stand out perhaps the most are a tough, lively “Ninety Nine” (Sonny Boy Williamson II) and two creeping numbers in a Thunderbirds-sounding “Blue and Lonesome” (Little Walter) with its gruff harmonica and a “Worried Life Blues” (Big Maceo Merriweather) featuring some cavernous vocals from Wilson and terrific playing from Barrelhouse Chuck.
The collection, for example, begins and ends with different versions of Hooker’s earliest hit “Boogie Chillen'”, the first, a crackling recording of just Hooker and his guitar from the September 1948 solo session that launched Hooker’s career and that helps establish the boogie from the set’s very start. Contrast that to the later (as in five decades later) more rocking version, which captures a much older Hooker joined by Eric Clapton, Rick Kirch, and Johnny Lee Schell all on guitar and incorporates some lively keyboards, one of only a few songs on which Hooker begins to show his age vocally. In between, there’s also a live acoustic solo version of the song from 1962, a rather low-key performance with a soft-spoken intro that, along with the other songs included here from that same San Francisco blues club (Sugar Hill) show — the much more traditional, Sonny and Brownie-like than boogeying “Bottle Up and Go” and creeping “Crawlin’ King Snake” (also representing the second version of the song) — helps remind the listener just how smooth Hooker’s voice and playing could be.
For longtime bluesmen Henry Gray and Tail Dragger, the late, great Chester Burnett — a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf — didn’t just serve as an inspiration. For them, he was a band leader and mentor, and the inclusion of these now senior statesmen of the blues is just one of the things that helps to make Howlin’ at Greaseland (West Tone Records) such a special tribute to this true giant of the genre, along with contributions from names like harmonica player Rick Estrin, multi-instrumentalist (and project recorder) Kid Andersen, horn man Terry Hanck, and keyboardist Jim Pugh (Robert Cray Band), among others.