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Motor City Blues: Please Mr. Foreman (1973) |
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Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals
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Saturday, 31 December 2005 07:43 |
Please Mr. Foreman
Motor City Blues
Recorded 'Live' at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1973
Schoolkids Records / Total Energy Records
By John Sinclair
As a teen-age record collector in the 1950s and later as a resident of the Motor City, this writer had always been enamored of the peculiar strain of urban folk music known as the Detroit blues. Obscure singles by Eddie Burns, Baby Boy Warren, Bobo Jenkins, Dr. Ross, Little Sonny, One String Sam and others, on labels like JVB, Blue Lake, Sun, Excello, Anna, Checker and Chess, had revealed glimpses of an ultra-funky esthetic which had a certain character and charm of its own.
Even the one Detroit bluesman whose records gained popular status in urban blues circles, John Lee Hooker, featured a sound and approach much less focused than the disciplined attack of the Chicago blues giants whose records dominated the blues charts and jukeboxes of the time.
Detroit bluesmen had always struggled for survival in a steadily shrinking world of opportunity. Lacking the series of polished recordings which made national performing careers for B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, and other widely-recognized blues artists, most Detroit blues players were able to find work only in nasty little neighborhood joints one or two nights a week, occasionally issuing little-heard recordings that were at best few and far between.
Still there was something about this music that grabbed you. Cherished sides like "Orange Driver" by Eddie Burns on Anna, "Boogie Disease" by Dr. Ross on Sun, "Democrat Blues" by Bobo Jenkins on Chess, "Please Mr. Foreman" by Joe L. on Hi Records, and especially "I Need $100" by One String Sam on JVB became staunch personal favorites, and my curiosity regarding the whereabouts of these characters mounted over the years.
The great Aaron "Little Sonny" Willis had been well received the previous year, and it seemed likely that his lesser-known contemporaries like Bobo Jenkins, Eddie Burns, Mr. Bo, Joe L., Washboard Willie, and Baby Boy Warren would also enjoy the approval of the crowd of some 12,000 young music lovers. Dr. Ross was somewhat better known as a result of his LPs for Fortune and Arhoolie Records, and Boogie Woogie Red had gained some welcome local notoriety at the Blind Pig Cafe, which had been featuring his piano and vocal stylings on a regular basis for some months.
Then there were several even more obscure and idiosyncratic artists to be located John Lee Hooker's old compatriot, Eddie Kirkland, who had recorded LPs for Bluesville and Trix Records in the modern period; the dynamic blueswoman Johnnie Mae Matthews, whose professional efforts seemed now to be directed toward managing her son Chuckie's band called Black Nazty; and the legendary One String Sam, who hadn't been spotted for ten or fifteen years but lived on through his immortal recording of "I Need $100," preserved for the present generation on an Arhoolie/Blues Classics LP titled Detroit Blues.
As described by Detroit journalist Sheldon Annis in the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz festival program book back in 1973:
" Little Mack Collins is a versatile musician who has been working on the bar circuit for many years. He has played back-up for most of Detroit's bluesmen.
" Little Junior [Cannady], who often works with harmonica player Detroit Willie, is one of the city's most regular bar musicians. He tends to play whatever is popular nationally, currently B.B. King. He has recorded on Bobo Jenkins' label, Big Star.
" Bobo Jenkins came up from Mississippi after the war. His first recording, "Democrat Blues" on Chess, was an instant smash and is now considered a blues classic. He recorded regularly in the 50s and recently released an LP on his own label, Big Star.
" One String Sam walked into Joe's Record Shop on Hastings Street about 20 years ago and recorded two sides. He played a fretless, one-string, home-made monochord instrument. He was seen playing the streets for a few years, then he disappeared.
" Johnny Mae Matthews, one of the rare women blues singers still active around Motown, remains a distinct credit to the tradition she continues to uphold.
" Washboard Willie is the grand old man of Detroit blues. He's been playing his drums and washboard professionally since the end of the second World War. Whenever a washboard player has been needed in Detroit, Willie has been there.
" Doctor Ross is a one-man band. The band now lives in Flint, Michigan. Doctor Ross The Harmonica Boss is his most recent album. He is also known for singles like "Industrial Boogie," "General Motors Blues," and "I'd Rather Be An Old Woman's Baby Than A Young Woman's Slave."
" Boogie Woogie Red played back-up on nearly all of John Lee Hooker's Detroit recordings and was a regular part of the Hooker band during the 50s. He has toured Europe and now sometimes plays in a blind pg he won't tell you about.
" Baby Boy Warren has only recently returned to his music having been ill and having to support a large family by factory work. A rhythmic country guitarist, he recorded widely in the 50s and was one of the city's most popular musicians. He is often remembered for "Sanafee" and "Baby Boy Blues."
" Eddie Burns is often said to be Detroit's least-appreciated blues talent. He recorded regularly with John Lee Hooker in his early days and has played guitar or harmonica with nearly every major blues musician who has been in the city. He has recorded successful singles on several labels.
" Mr. Bo, still a young man, has been on the Detroit bar and club circuit for almost 20 years. He works unashamedly in the style of B.B. King, although he never sings and plays at the same moment. For many years he was under stranglehold contract to Diamond Jim, who led perhaps Detroit's best example of what was once known as the Sporting Life. That association ended recently when Jim was offed in a bar.
Sheldon Annis, 1973
* * * * *
The unbelievably raw and exciting Eddie Kirkland turned up somehow and was inserted into the lineup with his own second guitarist, bassist and drummer, still unidentified after all these years.
Demonstrating once and for all the blues roots of heavy metal rock & roll with his relentless, super-charged, over-driven guitar attack, Kirkland provided the show's highest moment when he exploded from a prone position he'd been rocking back and forth on his back on the stage floor into a full somersault, all without missing even a beat.
There were definite flashes of brilliance, including the outstanding set by Baby Boy Warren, the smooth, stirring guitar of Mr. Bo, the thrill of hearing Dr. Ross do his classic "Boogie Disease," the hard-rocking Johnny Mae Matthews rendition of her well-known composition "Send You Back To Georgia," and the unanticipated appearance of Joe L. Carter offering his great song "Please Mr. Foreman."
The amazing One String Sam, alone on stage with his primitive board-plank-and-baling-wire instrument, his other-worldly voice and captivating demeanor. He used a baby-food jar to bridge his one string and another, slightly larger jar as a combination slide and echo chamber, raising it from fretting the string to sticking it at the side of his mouth next to the microphone for extra-special vocal effects.
As it happened, One String Sam enjoyed the greatest applause of any artist at the festival and turned out to be the star of the entire weekend, hanging around the grounds and entertaining small hordes of young music-lovers here and there with his startling art and effervescent personality. An immediate hit with thousands of people who'd never even heard his name before, One String responded as if he'd been pleasing audiences of this size all his life and just went on and had himself a natural ball.
New Orleans
August 10, 1994
(c) 1994, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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