This is the third box set from Storyville that features both well known and obscure American blues artists, and the second one that focuses on the blue collar juke jointers from the South Side of Chicago from the 1970s.
The music on these 8 discs is from the unlikely story of Parisian teacher Marcelle Chailleux Morgantini being escorted around the smoky late night blues clubs of Chicago by local legend Jimmy Johnson. With recorder in tow, Ms. Morgantini created the MCM label that featured guys that never made the “big time,” but kept true to the sounds that are still part of America’s marrow. Each disc focuses on a different artist, with every song filled with red clay under the fingernails, reaching into the taproot of modern music.
Places like The Golden Slippers, Ma Bea’s and Big Dukes were the homes for the artists such as Dawkins, Hip Lankchan, Eddie Clearwater, Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Johnson, John Littlejohn, Magic Slim, Louis Myers and others. The guitar work ranges between Jimmy Johnson’s shades of Hendrix on “J.D’s Jam” and “Nature Ball” to slithering slide by Littlejohn on “Dust My Broom.” The songs range from jazzy blues like “Chicken Shack” or rural country such as “Ode To Billy Joe” and even some greasy takes of Motown, such as a groovin’ take of the Temptations’ “Get Ready (For Here I Come)”. But, of course, the vast mother lode here is shuffling and boogie-ing blues, delivered by some incredibly deft rhythm teams, and sung out by these guys with growls, slurs, shouts and moans that are as rich as a deep dish pizza.
You get a good supply of fare such as “Got My Mojo Workin’” and “The Thrill is Gone”, but the real treat are the local obscurities, such as Eddie Taylor’s “Big Town Playboy,” Jimmy Johnson’s “Long About Midnight” and Jimmy Dawkins’ “Big Duke’s.” The instrumental jams make you feel like it’s 2 am in The Windy City, so casual, so relaxed, so SWINGING, as on “Dream #2” with LittleJohn or “Dry Land #2” from a pie-eyed session with Big Mojo Elem.
How many times is the sequel as good or better than the first? Like Star Wars and The Godfather, this one doesn’t disappoint!
Storyville Records