Search - Junior Wells :: Hoodoo Man Blues

NOTHING BUT THE BLUES!

Bertrando Goio | Italy | 04/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First, I ask everybody to forgive me for my poor English (I'm from Italy)...



I think that if I had to choose ten CD to take with me on a desert island Hoodoo Man Blues would be one. In 1965 Jr. Wells began a fantastic career that reached the top in 1975 with Live at Theresa's. The stuff recorded after this year I dont think it's that good except for few numbers. The best of Jr. Wells I think it's included in these 10 years, included the very first recordings of the 50's (Blues Hit Big Town is a fantastic Chicago blues album). Hoodoo Man Blues is what a Chicago Blues harmonica fan asks for. In this album you can imagine to be in a club in the West Side or South Side, close your eyes and enjoy the atmosphere... Junior has that dry, raw, direct sound, so simple and so exciting... Well, my favorite harmonica plauer is Rice Miller, I'm cray about Big Walter Horton and I also like Little Walter, and Junior Wells is the heritage of all these dudes... I love his way of using the throat when he gasps through the mic... It reminds me Sonny Terry's and Peg Leg Sam's whooping and yelling between a note and another one. Junior "translates" that old time way of playing into a modern context. I know very well that old time players: Jaybird Coleman, DeFord Bailey even the less known ones like Horace Sprott or Rich Amerson and all that could recorded in the 50s and the 60s, and if I feel the blues when I listen to them, I don't think the feeling is changed with Junior, even the times had changed. Junior is a today's (I mean in the 60s and 70s) man who brings us the same old blues feeling, and I think this is what a blues player-singer should do. I don't like that today's monsters who plays thousands notes a minute but don't tell me anything... Well, listen e.g. to Ships On The Ocean... it will tell you EVERYTHING! Junior plays THE REAL DEAL: no real bluesman would play a note if it's not necessary, and that funky minded bad boy can play the blues... nothing but the blues! Other terrific album by Junior Wells, on my opinion, are:



>BLUES HIT BIG TOWN (the very first Junior Wells, 1953-'54)

>IT'S MY LIFE, BABY! (a fantstic live/studio album, I love it!)

>ON TAP (An overlooked but excellent CD)

>COMING AT YOU (other Vanguard numbers with too many horns on my opinion. Anyway, a must for Jr. Wells's fans)

>SINGS LIVE AT THE GOLDEN BEAR (An other overlooked beautiful CD with a lot of classic blues, a tribute to Little Walter, Sonny Boy II an others)

>LIVE AT THERESAS'S (highlghts: JUKE, COME ON IN THIS HOUSE, KEY TO THE HIGHWAY)

>THE BEST OF THE VANGUARD YEARS (with some of the stuff you can find in IT'S MY LIFE BABY, and COMING AT YOU, but worth the purchase: here you can find the best Junior's versions of MESSIN' WITH THE KID, SHOTGUN BLUES, ALL NIGHT LONG, IT HURTS ME TOO and HELP ME)

>DRINKIN' TNT & SMOKIN' DYNAMYTE (a killer live album in Europe, 1974)



There are also a few bunch of recordings from "18 TRACKS FROM THE FILM CHICAGO BLUES" (Red Lightnin') that are some of Junior's best live performances: IN MY YOUNGER DAYS, COUNTRY GIRL and perhaps the best version of HOODOO MAN BLUES I've ever heard.

Forgive me for the long review, but the blues is something that blows up my mind!



Cheers,



Bert"