Various wailers and shuffling beat boogiers
If you ever wanted to know what the 60s, and therefore, pop and rock music, would have sounded like if there were no British Invasion of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc, these two discs should go a long way in answering that question. What you’ve got here are a pair of discs that compile some of the toe-tappingest, blues shouting, and rhythm shuffling music around, with chopping guitars, crying harmonicas and smoky saxes filling your ear, while singers like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and James Cotton tell stories of not enough women, the right woman, and too many women.
Jukin’ has some Howlin’ Wolf at his all time fiercest, scaring the living daylights out of you on “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Cause Of It All” while James Cotton’s gets you in a nice mood on “Feeling Good.” Jimmy Reed’s “Shame Shame Shame” might be the best one ever, with it’s catchy guitar riff, while even Little Richard sounds inspired on his versions
here of “Tutti Frutti” and “Keep On Knockin’.” A party album indeed Bar-B-Cue’n Blues has Billy Boy Arnold delivering a hilarious “Diry Mother Furriers” that must have been a gas in concert. Muddy Waters’ “I Feel So Good” has him at his forboding best, while John Lee Hooker influenced millions of white boys with his playing on tunes like “Sally Mae” and “Should Have Been Gone.” Again, these discs aren’t for deeper poetic interpretations of the angst of life, but basic “Is you Is or Is You Ain’t” stuff of red beans and rice eateries. Nothing wrong with that for a cleaning of the carb!
Catbone Records
www.catbonemusic.com