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Snooks Eaglin: "Live" in Japan |
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Reviews
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 07:02 |
Snooks Eaglin
'Live' in Japan
BlackTop Records
By John Sinclair
Snooks Eaglin is the Crescent City's secret weapon, a blind bombadier of the electric guitar who plays, nearing age 60, with more intensity, taste, mastery and musical command than most anyone you can think of--and the kicker is, he gets better all the time.
The past 10 years since Snooks signed with BlackTop Records have been good to Eaglin's fans, giving us many hours of musical enjoyment by way of his recordings (Baby, You Can Get Your Gun, Out of Nowhere, Teasin' You and Soul's Edge), his exhilarating performances at JazzFest and around New Orleans, and his rare personal appearances outside Louisiana. His early work as a street singer is out on several CDs, and his great R&B sides of 1960-63, produced by Dave Batholomew, were reissued by Capitol in 1995 as Snooks Eaglin: The Complete Imperial Recordings.
Live in Japan is a splendid document of Snooks' first Japanese tour, five dates with Aaron Little Sonny Willis and Robert Lockwood Jr. which culminated in the Park Tower shows of December 9-10, 1995, happily captured on tape by Blues Interactions Records.
Now BlackTop has graced us with its American release, Snooks' fifth for the New Orleans-based blues label and his first full-length "live" recording (although he can be heard to great effect on stage at Tipitina's in the BlackTop Blues-A-Rama series.)
Snooks took the stage at the Park Tower with the musical backing of a stellar Crescent City rhythm section anchored by his favorite runnin' pardner, bassist George Porter Jr., and drummer Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander. Here they're augmented by keyboard ace John Autin, whose piano and Hammond B-3 flesh out the stripped-down sound of Snooks' customary trio quite nicely.
Snooks sounds very much at home before his Tokyo audience--he's relaxed and definitely ready to play, and he whips though his delightfully eclectic repertoire with fiery abandon, cooking like crazy from the first notes of Bill Doggett's "Quaker City" all the way through the wonderful James (Wee Willie) Waynes classic, "Travelin' Mood," that closes the set.
The familiar material is mainly drawn from Teasin' You and Soul's Edge, with the added attraction of Snooks' fervent take on Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and the steaming Bill Doggett instrumental. He addresses the blues ballads with his usual emotive force, delivering impassioned readings of Earl Connelly King's "Don't Take It So Hard," Charles Brown's immortal "Black Night" and the fine Dan Penn composition, "Nine Pound Steel."
And, as usual, Snooks honors some of his favorite New Orleans songwriters--Smiley Lewis, Earl King, Dave Bartholomew--with rollicking romps on "Down Yonder," "Josephine," Lillie Mae" and "Yours Truly," and he puts his special twist on the obscure Earl King anthem "Soul Train." (Two more Earl King tunes, "Teasin' You" and "My Love Is Strong," were included on the Japanese release but do not appear here.)
Snooks generally makes his uniquely personal music out of the creations of others, spotlighting artists and songwriters whose work he has admired and studied over the years and charging their songs with his own soul, wit, energy, drive, and utter mastery of the expressive language of the electric guitar.
Considered sort of a "human jukebox" in honor of his enormous repertoire of popular songs, rhythm & blues evergreens and obscurities, Snooks never brings less to any song than its original interpreter invested it with, and often adds considerably to the strength and impact of the tunes he chooses to share with us.
This "live" set is highlighted by one of Snooks' rare originals, an Ash Wednesday reflection on Carnival in New Orleans called "I Went to the Mardi Gras" which bids fair to enter the holy musical pantheon of Mardi Gras songs that includes "Jock-A-Mo," "Mardi Gras Mambo," "Go to the Mardi Gras," "Big Chief" and the rest. The tune was co-written with Tommy Ridgley, whose splendid BlackTop album Since the Blues Began was brightly illuminated by Snooks' sizzling guitar work, and this one will be heard at Carnival Time for years to come.
If you're a Snooks Eaglin fanatic (like this writer), you'll be playing this "live" set again and again, enjoying the opportunity to hear the man in concert and relish his twisted comments between songs. If you don't have his BlackTop CDs, this record will serve as an introduction to one of the outstanding rhythm & blues figures of our time, performing a typically rewarding set of tunes at the very peak of his considerable power as a guitarist, singer and bandleader.
In any case, this record makes an excellent addition to the Snooks Eaglin oeuvre, and that's always good news. Our poor miserable world and its wretched inhabitants need more music like this, whether they're in Japan or the USA, and Snooks stands ready, as always, to answer the call.
--New Orleans
March 8, 1997
(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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