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Going to be short and to the point, “Boom Boom.”
The first paragraph in the last Blues Roots was only there because I wasn’t paying close enough attention, after posting I got busy at work (that’s always a risk when I’m posting, if work comes along, I have to drop everything). I’d been busy while preparing it. That sentence was the kind of jive I might type when I’m preparing the posts, talking to myself, but I usually delete things like that along with profanity, typos, next week’s winning lottery numbers, and silly remarks like the last one. My apologies, mostly my acknowledgement it made no sense and didn’t belong there. I was reminded of something I’ve always known—no writer should be without an editor, but that isn’t always practical.
If you didn’t see it, you don’t need to go back and look, not for that, anyway, but you might want to catch the spotlight on Homesick James, and a collection of lowdown blues songs (that playlist directly below).
This week’s post is short compared to many—if you want more, there are many in the archive.
Thanks for checking it out! The next Blues Roots will appear Thursday, October 26.
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The first song Hubert Sumlin learned was by John Lee Hooker , one he demonstrates in the first video below. John Lee’s influence has spread widely, far beyond those who have intentionally emulated him.
The following two paragraphs are from a recent article in American Blues Scene website commemorating his birthday (actually his 105th, his birth year was 1912, despite what “everyone,” including his official website, says):
From his humble beginnings in Tutwiler, Mississippi, John Lee learned gospel in the church and blues from visitors to the family home including Charley Patton, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and others. He learned his now famous “country boogie” beat from his stepfather, William Moore. As time passed he would go on to learn from listening to records, and other musicians he met.
After running away from home [at 14, or leaving home at 19] and landing in Memphis, John Lee continued to learn and grow playing with Robert Nighthawk and others. Eventually, he found himself in Detroit where he worked in factories and played the clubs.
I don’t think there are any recordings with Robert Nighthawk or any of his other early influences mentioned above.
Many of Brian’s E blues lessons cover the same path as the “Boom Boom” melody on the open first string, third fret and open on the second string, and the fourth and second frets on the third string (as do many, many other blues songs, “Smokestack Lightning” uses a close variant on it—John Lee Hooker’s 1964 version is very different, the lyrics are similar but it doesn’t use the distinctive riff; it’s also at 399 on the playlist—“Rollin’ and Tumblin’” does something similar too, but it usually isn’t in E, it’s funny what reversing a couple notes or a rhythmic displacement can do to a melody). It’s a really common turnaround move and John Lee Hooker has used it in many songs. EP175 as Lights played it reminded me of that and, in fact, it was when I was listening to him that I decided to do this topic this week.
Brian names him as more or less an influence on EP013, EP021 and EP032, and a lot of people have mentioned the song I’m spotlighting this week, “Boom Boom,” as an influence on EP028, but it’s a little more like “Dimples” (I like the way you walk), also featured below.
The first video in the John Lee Hooker playlist (in preceding link, also following this paragraph), a 1999 interview on BET, was recently removed from viewing in the U.S., but it contains many insights into John Lee Hooker’s personality, and it’s there for anyone who’s still lucky enough to see it. After that, there are many vintage live B&W clips (he was filmed as often as Elmore James wasn’t). This John Lee Hooker playlist still needs a lot of work, after the live clips some songs I like are mixed in with albums, and after that nothing is chronological or arranged following any logic, but the stuff is so good there’s nary a dip in the quality. There are a few albums from the John Lee Hooker YouTube topic on the list.
There’s a live version of “Me and My Telephone” at number 10, and recorded versions at 53 and 344.
The Hot Spot, an A+ soundtrack recording he made with Miles Davis for a B-movie, is at number 140 and 151; with Taj Mahal (acoustic guitar), Roy Rogers (slide guitar), Bradford Ellis (piano), Tim Drummond (bass), Earl Palmer (drums).
I don’t think he ever coasted, it just wasn’t him (he sure didn’t let on if he did), so it’s hard for me to mention outstanding tracks—they all are, just depends what you’re in the mood for (he stated that he was inspired by the Glenn Miller Orchestra song when he wrote “In the Mood”!!!).
John Lee Hooker’s rhythm guitarists were often either Eddie Taylor or Eddie Kirkland back in the ’50s and ‘60s. Eddie Taylor was also known as Jimmy Reed’s rhythm guitarist—actually, to the people buying Jimmy Reed’s records, he was unknown as Jimmy Reed’s rhythm guitarist, most people thought Jimmy Reed himself played those lumpa-lumpa 5–6 shuffles, he wasn’t credited on the packaging of the Vee-Jays but he was the man (but he isn’t the rhythm guitarist on all of the Jimmy Reed songs on the following playlist, still need to break this into two separate lists), and he was a killer-diller solo artist.
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1960
1961
With Tony (T.S.) McPhee and the Groundhogs, London, October 5, 1964.
1969, with Johnny Shines (guitar), Sunnyland Slim (piano), Willie Dixon (bass), Clifton James (drums). About a minute and a half in, there’s a meaningful wordless exchange between Willie Dixon and Johnny Shines right after John Lee says “Yack!”
1970, Detroit Tube Works
The Blues Brothers (1980)
1980
With Big Head Todd and the Monsters, released on their Beautiful World (1998)
With Ry Cooder, late 1990s
“Boom Boom” appears in the playlist (with lots of repetition) at numbers 3–5 (all same video from 1961), 9–11 (all same video from 1965), 14, 19–20 (same video from 1969), 105 (from The Blues Brothers, 1980), 107 (with Ry Cooder, late 1990s), 423, 432 (not Z.Z. Top, it’s Big Head Todd and the Monsters), and more at the bottom. I need to figure out what to do. The repetition disrupts my viewing, but when one gets deleted, I’m not at a loss.
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Here are several fine discographies.From His official website
This one was compiled by Thomas Jarlvik. It contains a section that includes all the others.
A PDF of The Complete John Lee Hooker Discography from The Great R&B files, created by Claus Röhnisch
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I love the way you walk
I love the way you walk
I’m crazy ’bout your walk
I love the way you walk
You my babe I got my eyes on youI like the way you switch
I like the way you switch
I like the way you switch
I like the way you switch
You my babe I got my eyes on youYou got dimples in your jaw
You got dimples in your jaw
You got dimples in your jaw
You got dimples in your jaw
You my babe I got my eyes on youWell, I see you every day
Well, I see you every day
If you need to look
Well, I see you every day
Well, I see you every day
You my babe I got my eyes on you1964
1997 from Don’t Look Back
These and other versions of “Dimples” can be found at 32–35 and 120 on the playlist. Following that, at number 121, is an interview with Lonesome George (Thorogood) from 1976; a short documentary called Boogie Man at 122; and at 123 Hooker ’n’ Heat (1971), followed by Hooker ’n’ Heat LIVE.
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In 1966, Muddy Waters’ band backed John Lee Hooker (personnel on screen about one minute in)—great recording but it was recorded in front of a studio audience not at the Café a Go-Go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kys62FwzJRcDon’t believe anyone who tells you that Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker or Z.Z. Top and John Lee Hooker ever played together—it’s not them (in the case of Z.Z. Top, it’s usually Big Head Todd; with Lightnin’ Hopkins, my advisors in the field think the mistake is likely based on an LP the two were on together without ever playing together on it).
There were so many great rock covers of John Lee Hooker’s songs and collaborations with him—Canned Heat, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Stevie Winwood, Carlos Santana, Van Morrison, Los Lobos, George Thorogood are just the first who come to mind—I’m going to do a whole ’nother Blues Roots on those. And Bonnie Raitt is special, her relation to John Lee Hooker is special, they toured together so much in the 1990s, I’d have to place her at the top of the list of his late-career collaborators, even though she says that while she loves the blues and plays the blues, she isn’t a blueswoman (a statement I understand and respect, when I find the exact quote, I’ll add it as a comment) and she isn’t a rock musician. Maybe just “a fine musician.”
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Earl Hooker was his paternal cousin. There’s a whole lot to love here.
If You Miss ’Im…I Got ’Im (1968).
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After leaving Mississippi, Detroit shaped John Lee Hooker and he shaped Detroit blues before moving to the West Coast in the late 1960s, answering the invitation of the hippie Valhalla (somewhere I recall hearing it was Charlie Musselwhite who persuaded John Lee Hooker to head west, but I haven’t found a verification for this anywhere, and it may, just may, have been someone else who Charlie Musselwhite invited).
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2018 calendars and a free 24-song CD are available from John Tefteller at Blues Images. for $24.95 (plus shipping and handling). The CD uses the same sound recovery and restoration process used on the PBS series American Epic.
The CD features 24 classic Pre-War Blues songs from such artists as:
Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Blake, Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy, Tampa Red & Georgia Tom, The Beale Street Sheiks, Bo Weavil Jackson and more! Plus two recently discovered tracks by Jab Jones & The Memphis Jug Band!Don D.
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Wow, Don, got a listening to do on this one.
The melody of the notes is what expresses the art of music . 🙂 6stringerPete
It really is all about ”melody”. The melody comes from a language from our heart. Our heart is the muscle in music harmony. The melody is the sweetness that it pumps into our musical thoughts on the fretboard. 🙂 6 stringer Pete
Pete
Active Melody
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Thanks, Pete, I’m sure you’ll find some good stuff!
If I had heard this music before yesterday evening, I would have included a small section then. These 4 songs by Latge B. Lawson & James Scott Jr. recorded at Sun Studios in 1951 are truly exceptional and great. The YouTube algorithm has gotten pretty good at finding things I’ll like. It thrust “Flypaper Boogie” on me, which sounded great enough that I chased down the others and found that I liked them even more. “Got My Call Card” is some primo blues, played so well, words don’t suffice. This is how I want to sound.
Since I’m posting, here’s one more.
Don D.
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It gets better. I was looking for some info about this newfound music and the people who made it. I found the guide to all things 706 Union Avenue (Sun Records studios), their informational website. This won’t be the last you hear about this website.
LATGE “L.B.” LAWSON, WITH JAMES SCOTT, JR., & CHARLES McCLELLAND
In many ways, the L.B. Lawson-Scott, Jr. songs on the 1952 sessions on 706 Union prefigure grunge-blues and Canned Head-style endless boogies. Some commentators have even draw a parallel with the Rolling Stones’ mid-1970s recordings. With two lead electric guitars scrapping at each other Scott Jr’s Blues Rockers were prophets, albeit prophets without much honor—or much of anything—at the time.
Singer L.B. Lawson fronted the Blues Rockers for their first and only session. Born as Latge B. Lawson in Enid, Mississippi on November 21, 1929, he played baseball with the Memphis Red Sox in the old Negro Leagues, and began his singing career with a gospel group, the Allen Chapel Specials.
According to Steve LaVere, Bob Eagle, and Jim O’Neal who interviewed the surviving Blues Rockers in 1972, Scott was ferrying the Specials to their gigs when he found that Lawson could imitate anybody, and recruited him for a group he started in 1946. Lawson stayed until around 1956 when he reportedly killed someone in Lambert, Mississippi, and ran away to Chicago. In Lawson’s very different account, he was jailed in 1955-1956 for his involvement in trying to settle a dispute between two women. His boss, Harry Robertson of Robert Motors in Clarksdale, bailed him out and he left for Chicago. He was working as a cab driver when LaVere, O’Neal and Eagle met him. As far as we can tell, Lawson is still alive, but cannot be traced.
James Scott Jr. was born in Lexington, Mississippi on January 21, or 27, 1913 (or 1912 according to his application for Social Security). When he was about twelve years old, he talked his uncle (also James Scott) out of an old guitar with just three strings. A year or so later, his mother traded a turkey to a white man for a guitar with all six strings. Scott began picking out some hillbilly songs and worked house parties with Luther Taylor, Cripple Crowder, and Snooky Pryor. According to Al Smith’s interview with Pryor, Scott lived close-by, and when he heard that Snooky could play harmonica he would sneak him out of the house on Saturday nights so that they could play house parties. Pryor later said, “We were really getting paid to rehearse, because we did not get much chance to play before people.” Scott would get Pryor home before his father woke up in the morning. This would have been in the mid-1930s because Pryor left Mississippi in 1937.
The Blues Rockers were formed in 1948 were rounded out by Charles McClelland on guitar and Robert Fox playing a tub bass that Scott had built. Later, Scott bought a drum kit for Fox. Apparently, Fox lived with the Scott’s from the age of ten. Charles McClelland was born August 24, 1911 in Brookhaven, Mississippi but his family moved to the Delta when he was an infant. Like Scott, his interest in music was ignited by Luther Taylor. McClelland noted Taylor’s style of playing and the female attention he received. After several years’ service in Europe during World War II, he returned to the Delta and joined Scott’s group.
Scott’s recording debut was a bust. He played slide guitar on Boyd Gilmore’s RPM-Modern recording of “All In Mt Dreams,” but his intro was edited out before release and an Elmore James intro was spliced in. The Gilmore session was in January 1952, and the Sun session was probably later that year. The handful of titles they cut at 706 Union were not released at the time, although Scott claimed that the instrumental “Scott’s Boogie” was given a radio broadcast—possibly to test local audience reaction.
The Blues Rockers stayed together in Mississippi until Lawson left in 1955. Fox went to Tucson, Arizona, and died there in 1962. Around 1956 Scott moved up to Chicago where he re-formed the group, worked in a factory by day and continued playing parties and clubs by night. “Scott, an easygoing man, never promoted himself very much” wrote Jim O’Neal in Scott’s obituary. He played occasionally with Eddie Taylor, Carey Bell and Little Arthur, working day jobs in factories. The first single released under his name was on Big Beat Records in 1972, and it was a new version of the Boyd Gilmore song he’d worked on twenty tears earlier.
In 1978, music became his sole career and he began working clubs like Sheila’s Lounge and touring with Hip Linkchain and Mojo Elem. In 1981, they played a four-week gig in Paris, France. That same year, Scott made some recordings for Chicago’s NPR station, WBEZ, that were licensed to Red Lightnin’ in England. James Scott Jr. died in Chicago on July 18, 1983, a year after touring Europe for the first (and only) time. (CE)
Don D.
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