Topic: Dance Music
B.B. King observed that, as he became popular with white audiences "in the sixties they dropped the ‘rhythm’ and I became blues only. [. . .] But I can’t help wondering what happened to my ‘rhythm’? Did I lose it along the way? I think the original label still says it best. I still see myself as a rhythm and blues man." [1] As he said elsewhere, he "always liked two drummers. Still use two today. Can’t have too much rock-steady rhythm." [2]
As Thunderbird Davis’ version of "Come by Here" moved from the integrated Blacktop All Stars, who back him in 1989, [3] to the nearly all-white Joe Kubek band in 1992 to Tony Blew’s white one-man band in 2013, the rhythm became progressively rudimentary and the African-American singing style modified to fit tastes inherited from the Anglo-Scots reformation. [4]
Kubek had worked with Freddie King, whom B.B. described as a "monster player, another man related to me not by kin, by spirit." [5] Freddie died in 1976. Kubek’s band included Phil Campbell, who had play drums for Freddie, [6] and Bnois King, an African-American raised near Monroe, Louisiana. [7] His bass player, Greg Wright, had worked with Joe Ely [8] in Lubbock, Texas. [9]
Rhythm was one of the things Kubek altered. He didn’t eliminate it, but made the drums the only percussive instrument. After all, he and his band had spent years working in Texas bars where people didn’t listen, but as Ely’s manager remembered, "if they like you, they get up and dance." [10]
The Blacktop All Stars’ rhythm had merged the sounds of several men, besides the drummer. Davis contributed his voice as to the rhythmic texture. He lengthened the words that fell on the beats and shortened the others while the saxophone supplemented his singing.
Tony Blew simplified the rhythm even more when he performed Kubek’s version in Ottumwa, Iowa. He used a drum machine, and emphasized his guitar playing. He extended the solos and added some neck runs borrowed from rock. Like Wright, he was a second generation country bar musician. [11]
The other change Bnois made was the enunciation. As mentioned in the post for 15 April 2014, the religious Davis may not have been comfortable with some of the phrases. One time it sounded like he said "I need you in the most asking way." Bnois made that "I need you now in a special way." He probably knew the correct words because Ron Levy, who wrote the song with Davis, was the album’s producer. [12]
In another place, Davis may simply have forgotten the words. I couldn’t understand the first line of the third verse, and the second line was "I’ll clean house clean." Again, Bnois either knew the original text or created a rational one when he sang:
"Now you don’t have to worry
I keep the house real clean"
It didn’t matter if one couldn’t understand everything Davis said. The variations in his vocal tones communicated his message. Bnois didn’t begin singing blues until he was in his forties. He may have had a sanctified grandmother, but the years in he spent in places like Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas, [13] probably taught him that many of his fans had, to paraphrase the Presbyterian church, to understand what they were hearing. [14]
Bnois kept his voice in a lower register and only screamed a word once. That was during the repetition of the word "baby" toward the end when no one could miss the meaning. Blew sang, rather than spoke, used a guttural voice on one line, and tended to mumble the words that weren’t accented.
Performers
Kubek
Vocal Soloist: Bnois King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Joe Kubek, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Bnois King, rhythm guitar; Greg Wright, electric bass
Rhythm Accompaniment: Phil Campbell, drums
Blew
Vocal Soloist: Tony Blew
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Instrumental Accompaniment: Tony Blew, electric guitar
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum machine
Credits
Kubek
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [15]
Blew
Original artists- R. Levy and J. Davis
Notes on Lyrics
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Bnois reversed the order of second and third verses
2. Bnois altered or corrected words and phrases that were unclear on Davis’ record
Blew
Same as Kubek
Notes on Music
Kubek
Same as version recorded by Thunderbird Davis with the following exceptions:
1. Fewer instruments, so Kubek’s guitar took over the role of the saxophone
2. Rhythm simplified
3. Instrumental break after every verse
Blew
Same as version recorded by Joe Kubek with the following exceptions:
1. Only one instrument, the electric guitar
2. Rhythm reduced to drum machine
3. Guitar solos borrowed virtuoso riffs from rock musicians
Notes on Performance
Kubek
Location: Ardent Studios, Memphis, Tennessee
Blew
Occasion: unidentified concert
Location: the room looked like one in a club or community center. It had dark wainscoting and lace curtains at the windows. A local bartender said the version "sounds just like I recall from nights at the Red Lion Inn." [16]
Microphones: floor mike
Clothing: long-sleeved, dark shirt
Notes on Movement
Blew
Blew sat behind a small table and kept time by lifting his left heel.
Audience Perceptions
Kubek
Brian focused on Kubek’s rhythm on the album he made a year before Chain Smokin’. He wrote on Amazon:
"The rhythm section is superb, with Phil Campbell on drums, who shuffles like a dream, and so lid as a rock bass playing from Greg Wright. Bnois King's vocals surprised me at first - I thought they were pretty ‘un-bluesy’. However, after listening through the album they grew on me, and I now consider his voice to be one of the best I’ve ever heard on a blues album. His rhythm playing though, is what does it for me. Unbelievably tight, and unashamedly repetitive. Repetitiveness though, is what I believe it HAD to be in a 2 guitar situation. Due to the fact that Bnois keeps it simple, and Greg Wright and Phil Campbell just ‘sit’ on the groove, it leaves space for the monster that is.... Smokin’ Joe Kubek. Quite how this man can play the guitar the way he does with guage 13 strings, I’ll never know." [17]
Denis summarized Chain Smokin’ by saying: "It’s a great CD for grillin’ and having some beer and having some driving jams in the background." [18]
Blew
His audience, which could not be seen in the video, applauded at the end.
Notes on Performers
Freddie King mentored Kubek the same way Guitar Slim had Davis. The difference was Slim moved in the world settled before the Civil War where plantations used slave labor to grow sugar cane near the coast, and cotton inland. After World War I, both Houston and Thibodaux, Louisiana, became oil towns. [19]
Freddie played in Dallas and west Texas, which developed after the Civil War with cattle. When irrigation from the aquifer became practical, west Texas began growing cotton. After World War II, the air force located bases in towns like Abilene and Amarillo. Lubbock used Mexicans to pick its crops. [20]
Kubek was born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, [21] an industrial town in the coal country north of Pittsburgh. [22] His family moved to Irving, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, when he was a child. [23] He told Don Brown he was impressed by the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan, [24] and began watching any guitar player on television. He was influenced by B.B. King, before he began working with Freddie [25] when he was nineteen. [26]
After Freddie died, Kubek played with other musicians, including Al Bragg, who had worked as a songwriter for Peacock Records. Kubek worked with him recording demos for Bobby Bland. [27]
He met Bnois King in 1989 in a Dallas club, and they started playing small bars in the area, then began playing more in west Texas. Bnois’s grandmother had sent him to the local Roman Catholic school, but moved away about the time he began playing guitar. [28]
Blew’s family lived in Iowa for generations. [29] As a teenager, he was singing for weddings with his brother in the local Roman Catholic church. [30] His first jobs were playing country music, and then he recorded jingles. He eventually became known in Ottumwa as a blues musician. [31]
Availability
Kubek
Album: Chain Smokin’ Texas Style. Bullseye Blues BB 9524. 1992.
Blew
YouTube: uploaded by tonyblew50 on 13 December 2013.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 231.
2. King. 171. The use of two drummers may explain why the individuals quoted in the post for 13 April 2018 weren’t sure who played drums on his recording of "Come by Here." It’s also possible King recorded with a different instrumental configuration than he used in live performances because studios and clubs have different acoustic requirements.
3. James "Thunderbird" Davis recording of "Come by Here" was described in the post for 15 April 2018.
4. For more on the influence of the Anglo-Scots Reformation, see the post for 23 August 2017.
5. King. 252.
6. Robert Baird. "Long Live the King. Smokin’ Joe Kubek Keeps His Mentor’s Flame Alive." Phoenix New Times website. 23 October 1991.
7. Don O. [Don Ottensman]. "Bnois King Interview." Blues and Rhythm 122:1997. Reprinted by Alan B. Govenar. Texas Blues. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. 147-152.
8. Joe Ely was then a country-rock performer. He was born in Amarillo, Texas, and moved to Lubbock when he was twelve-years-old. (William Ruhlmann. "Joe Ely." All Music website.)
9. Joe Ely. Quoted by "Gotta Lubbock." Texas Monthly. May 2000.
10. Johnny Hughes. Quoted by Texas Monthly.
11. Ely remembered, "When I got the first version of my band together, with Lloyd [Maines] and Jesse [Taylor], Steve Keeton and Gregg Wright and Rick Hulett, we were all talking, setting up at the Cotton Club. Everybody knew that everybody else’s daddy, except for mine, had played in bands, but they started talking, and by the end of the conversation, they realized that at one time, their daddies all played in the same band together." (Texas Monthly)
Tony Blew’s father "played guitar in many bands throughout his career including the Ponderosa Playboys which was an area backup band for Nashville stars and the Don Blew Trio and Don Blew Quartet with his two sons." Ottumwa was a regular stop on concert schedules for Nashville artists. (Obituary for Don Blew. Ottumwa Courier. 2 September 2013.)
12. All Music entry for album.
13. Don O.
14. During the English Civil War, Parliament instructed Scots to sing the psalms "with understanding." This emphasis on knowing what was being sung was part of the reaction against the Latin mass and the part singing that followed. (Scotland. Act of Parliament to establish The Directory for The Publick Worship of God. Edinburgh, 6 February 1645. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics website.)
15. All Music, Chain Smokin’.
16. Mike W. Comment posted to YouTube. November 2017.
17. Brian. Comment posted 25 August 2000. Amazon page for Kubek’s Steppin’ Out Texas Style.
18. Denis. Comment posted 19 June 2010. Amazon page for Kubek’s Chain Smokin’.
19. Hannusch.
20. Texas Monthly.
21. Robert Philpot. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, DFW Bluesman, Dies at 58." [Fort Worth] Star-Telegram. 12 October 2015.
22. "Grove City, PA History." Grove City Country Club website.
23. "Smokin’ Joe Kubek, Dallas Blues Guitar Great, Has Died at 58." Guitar Player website. 12 October 2015.
24. David Mac. "Joe Kubek (November 30, 1956 – October 11, 2015)." Blues Junction Productions website.
25. Don Brown Sr. "Blues Interview with Smokin’ Joe Kubek." Jazz Internet website.
26. Mac.
27. Mac. Bland was mentioned in the post for 15 April 2018.
28. Don O.
29. Entries for Tony Blew’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents on Find a Grave website.
30. Item. Ottumwa Courier. 4 November 1974. 5.
31. "Tony Blew." Iowa Blues Hall of Fame website.
Showing posts with label King B.B.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label King B.B.. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Sunday, April 15, 2018
James “Thunderbird” Davis - Come By Here
Topic: Dance Music
In the 1960s, rock replaced rock ’n’ roll. Young musicians came of age who had listened to records by urban bluesmen in much the same way B.B. King had heard recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson as a child. [1] Niche artists like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were searching out bluesmen in Chicago while the better known Rolling Stones were proclaiming their debt to King. [2]
Still, King was despondent. His marriage was disintegrating [3] and his new record company was treating him with less respect than the Bihari brothers [4] had done. In one session, the producer hired another guitarist to replay his solos. [5] King had become friendly with his manager’s accountant, and in 1968 asked Sidney Seidenberg to take over as manager. [6]
Seidenberg believed King should take his music to the audience cultivated by blues-influenced white musicians. On 26 February 1967, he booked King into the mecca of San Francisco rock, Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. King remembered:
"By the time I strapped on Lucille, every single person in the place was standing up and cheering like crazy. For the first time in my career, I got a standing ovation before I played. Couldn’t help but cry." [7]
The interest in blues spread from men like King to lesser known artists who were rediscovered by independent record companies. In1989, Blacktop Records recorded James "Thunderbird" Davis’ version of "Come by Here" with a group of musicians who previously had worked with performers like Little Richard, Sam Cook, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. [8]
Clarence Hollimon’s electric guitar solos were ones King could have done. Gandy Gaines could have played saxophone on King’s 1958 recording of "Come by Here." The piano player, Ron Levy, actually had worked for King in the 1970s. [9] Davis sometimes had been his opening act. [10]
The lyrics were different. The verses asked a woman to come visit the singer while his kids were in school and his wife was at her mother’s house. The chorus pled his case:
"Yeah baby, won’t you come by here
Well I’m all alone
And I swear the coast is clear."
Both Davis and Levy were credited with authorship of the song. It seems unlikely Levy, who was a Jew born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, learned the original "Come by Here" as a child. [11] Davis was raised by a religious family in a town near Mobile, Alabama, in 1938, and began as a gospel singer. After he retired in the 1970s, he worked as a laborer around Thibodaux, Louisiana, and sang in church. [12]
Both men could have known King’s version of "Come by Here," Davis from working with him in the 1960s, and Levy from the record. [13] The question was which man was more likely or more comfortable with changing the context from King’s promise of marriage to an admission of infidelity. That transformation may have been basis for their collaboration. [14]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: James Davis, baritone [15]
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Clarence Hollimon, electric guitar [16]
Instrumental Accompaniment: Grady Gaines, saxophone; [17] Ron Levy, piano; Lloyd Lambert, bass; Tony Klatka, trumpet [18]
Rhythm Accompaniment: David Lee, drum set [19]
Credits
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [20]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: strongly XxXx
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song with choruses
Verse Length: two long lines, broken into phrases of irregular length
Rhyme pattern: end rhyme
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Meter: generally iambic, but some feet had more and less than two syllables
Ending: repetitions of "baby
Unique Features: chorus alludes to AAB pattern of traditional blues
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: mixed vocal sections with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Davis used melisma in places, and was able to bridge the rhythmic irregularities in the text. His timbre varied, but Davis usually used a rasping voice and shouted in places. One fan wrote on Amazon:
"Davis was not an instrumentalist, so he put everything he had into his singing. There’s a lot of wisdom and soul in his gravelly voice [. . .] James still has that empathy in his vocals, laced with smoldering fire at times and with blazing fire at other times, that tells you that he will get through these circumstances." [21]
Instrumental Style: urban blues
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: Davis introduced the solos, much like Bob Wills [22] and Ernest Tubb [23] had done in country music performances. They both were from Texas, and may have shared the same tradition Davis inherited when he worked in Houston. [24]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: It might be too much to subtitle this album "six musicians in search of a singer," but that may have been what happened when studio musicians who had worked for Peacock Records in the 1950s were reassembled by Blacktop. The bass player, Lloyd Lambert, went looking for the retired Davis. The album was part reunion and part rediscovery of a blues singer.
Location: Southlake Recording Studios, Metairie, Los Angeles in February and March 1988. [25]
Notes on Performers
Blacktop Records was founded by Nauman Scott and his brother, Hammond Scott. The white boys had been raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they listened to bluesmen like John Lee Hooker and James Brown on radio. They established their blues revival company in New Orleans in 1981. [26]
Davis worked with Guitar Slim, [27] who, like King, was an early innovator on the electric guitar. Slim had begun performing in New Orleans with Frank Painia at the Dew Drop Inn. When Painia began having problems, he sent Eddie Jones to Hosea Hill in Thibodaux, an oil and sugar town southwest of New Orleans. There Slim worked with Hill’s band at the Sugar Bowl. [28]
Lambert was from Thibodaux, where he had played trumpet for Hill’s house band, the Serenaders. Lambert’s father was jazz guitarist in New Orleans. In the early 1950s, Lloyd switched to bass as local African-American tastes changed from big bands to rhythm and blues. When the New Orleans musicians’ union told Hill a musician needed to lead his Serenaders, he turned the band over to Lambert. [29]
After Slim moved to Thibodaux and began recording for Specialty Records, the Lloyd Lambert Orchestra began touring with him. The group also began backing other musicians on Specialty sessions, including Little Richard. [30] Penniman’s touring band, the Upsetters, included Grady Gaines on saxophone. [31] The two had met when Penniman was recording for Peacock Records in Houston. [32]
Davis came to Lambert’s attention when he asked Slim to listen to him sing before a performance in Mobile. Slim and Lambert hired him to appear before Slim as an opening act, and Davis followed Slim to Thibodaux. [33] When Slim died in 1959, Davis moved to Houston to work for Peacock Records where he made records demonstrating songs for Bland. It was there that Davis worked with Holliman. Peacock’s owner, Don Robey, was a difficult man, [34] and Davis left in 1966. [35]
Holliman was from Houston and had gone to work for Robey as a session musician in 1957. He accompanied Bland and gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds. [36]
Availability
Album: Check Out Time. Blacktop Records BT-1043. 1989.
YouTube: uploaded by Ron Levy on 31 July 2012.
End Notes
1. For more on B.B. King, see the post for 13 April 2018.
2. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 229-230. King specifically mentioned Mike Bloomfield with Butterfield and Keith Richards with the Stones.
3. King. 229.
4. For more on the Bihari brothers, see the post for 13 April 2018.
5. King. 232.
6. King. 235.
7. King. 240. Lucille was his guitar.
8. Bobby Bland was a Memphis-based blues singer. King credited Charles Keil for bringing him and Bland to the attention of white academics. (King. 230). Keil structured Urban Blues around the contrasting styles of the two men. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966).
9. Steve Huey. "Ron Levy." All Music website.
10. "Thunderbird Davis, A Blues Singer, 53." Obituary published by The New York Times. 27 January 1992.
11. Huey.
12. "James Thunderbird Davis." Mobile Bay Wiki website. Davis was from Prichard, Alabama, which began as freedman’s town, but grew when whites working for the Mobile shipyards moved there. (Wikipedia. "Prichard, Alabama.")
13. It seemed unlikely King kept "Come by Here" in his repertoire after Fillmore, but copies were available to afficionados.
14. Levy was a songwriter, not simply a company employee seeking to enhance his income. He remembered, Davis "had a wonderful personality, enthusiastically sang some of my compositions, and we even wrote a few together." (Levy. Tales of a Road Dog: The Lowdown Along the Blues Highway. Pennsauken, New Jersey: BookBaby, 2013. No page numbers in on-line edition.)
15. Mobile Bay Wiki.
16. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by saying what sounded like "come on Grant." Holloway was known as Gristle by his friends. (Roger Wood. "Hollimon, Milton Howard Clarence." Handbook of Texas Online. Uploaded 15 June 2010; last updated 9 March 2017.)
17. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by calling him Honey Gaines.
18. Discogs entry for the album include more saxophone players and another guitarist.
19. Discogs.
20. Levy, YouTube.
21. Blue Ox. Comment posted 4 December 2011. Amazon website for Checking Out.
22. Bob Wills was a western swing musician from Groesbeck, Texas. He made comments during his Texas Playboys instrumentals, and often introduced the soloists. He first became popular in the 1930s.
23. Ernest Tubb was a country singer from Crisp, Texas. He would always say "take it away Leon" before Leon Rhodes played a solo with the Texas Troubadours. His first hits were in the 1940s.
24. Wills said his comments didn’t come from medicine shows, but "came directly from playing and living close to Negroes, and that he never did it necessarily as show, but more as a way to express his feelings." (Quoted by Charles R. Townsend. San Antonio Rose. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976. 46. Cited by Wikipedia. "Bob Wills.")
25. All Music website posting for album.
26. Anthony Clark and Keith Spera. "Hammond and Nauman Scott: The Blues Brothers." Off Beat website. 1 January 1992.
27. Guitar Slim was born Eddie Jones in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was a flamboyant performer before artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry became popular. He anticipated later rock artists by exploiting distorted overtones in his guitar playing. (Wikipedia. "Guitar Slim.")
28. Jeff Hannusch. "Thibodaux’s Sugar Bowl." Off Beat website. 1 May 1999.
29. German Wikipedia. "Lloyd Lambert."
30. Wikipedia, Lambert.
31. Wikipedia. "Little Richard."
32. Wikipedia. "Grady Gaines."
33. Mobile Bay Wiki.
34. Wikipedia. "Don Robey."
35. Mobile Bay Wiki.
36. Wood.
In the 1960s, rock replaced rock ’n’ roll. Young musicians came of age who had listened to records by urban bluesmen in much the same way B.B. King had heard recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson as a child. [1] Niche artists like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were searching out bluesmen in Chicago while the better known Rolling Stones were proclaiming their debt to King. [2]
Still, King was despondent. His marriage was disintegrating [3] and his new record company was treating him with less respect than the Bihari brothers [4] had done. In one session, the producer hired another guitarist to replay his solos. [5] King had become friendly with his manager’s accountant, and in 1968 asked Sidney Seidenberg to take over as manager. [6]
Seidenberg believed King should take his music to the audience cultivated by blues-influenced white musicians. On 26 February 1967, he booked King into the mecca of San Francisco rock, Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. King remembered:
"By the time I strapped on Lucille, every single person in the place was standing up and cheering like crazy. For the first time in my career, I got a standing ovation before I played. Couldn’t help but cry." [7]
The interest in blues spread from men like King to lesser known artists who were rediscovered by independent record companies. In1989, Blacktop Records recorded James "Thunderbird" Davis’ version of "Come by Here" with a group of musicians who previously had worked with performers like Little Richard, Sam Cook, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. [8]
Clarence Hollimon’s electric guitar solos were ones King could have done. Gandy Gaines could have played saxophone on King’s 1958 recording of "Come by Here." The piano player, Ron Levy, actually had worked for King in the 1970s. [9] Davis sometimes had been his opening act. [10]
The lyrics were different. The verses asked a woman to come visit the singer while his kids were in school and his wife was at her mother’s house. The chorus pled his case:
"Yeah baby, won’t you come by here
Well I’m all alone
And I swear the coast is clear."
Both Davis and Levy were credited with authorship of the song. It seems unlikely Levy, who was a Jew born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, learned the original "Come by Here" as a child. [11] Davis was raised by a religious family in a town near Mobile, Alabama, in 1938, and began as a gospel singer. After he retired in the 1970s, he worked as a laborer around Thibodaux, Louisiana, and sang in church. [12]
Both men could have known King’s version of "Come by Here," Davis from working with him in the 1960s, and Levy from the record. [13] The question was which man was more likely or more comfortable with changing the context from King’s promise of marriage to an admission of infidelity. That transformation may have been basis for their collaboration. [14]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: James Davis, baritone [15]
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Soloist: Clarence Hollimon, electric guitar [16]
Instrumental Accompaniment: Grady Gaines, saxophone; [17] Ron Levy, piano; Lloyd Lambert, bass; Tony Klatka, trumpet [18]
Rhythm Accompaniment: David Lee, drum set [19]
Credits
Composers: James "Thunderbird" Davis and Ron Levy [20]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: strongly XxXx
Verses: own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: I
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: three-verse song with choruses
Verse Length: two long lines, broken into phrases of irregular length
Rhyme pattern: end rhyme
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Meter: generally iambic, but some feet had more and less than two syllables
Ending: repetitions of "baby
Unique Features: chorus alludes to AAB pattern of traditional blues
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: own
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: mixed vocal sections with instrumental ones
Singing Style: Davis used melisma in places, and was able to bridge the rhythmic irregularities in the text. His timbre varied, but Davis usually used a rasping voice and shouted in places. One fan wrote on Amazon:
"Davis was not an instrumentalist, so he put everything he had into his singing. There’s a lot of wisdom and soul in his gravelly voice [. . .] James still has that empathy in his vocals, laced with smoldering fire at times and with blazing fire at other times, that tells you that he will get through these circumstances." [21]
Instrumental Style: urban blues
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: Davis introduced the solos, much like Bob Wills [22] and Ernest Tubb [23] had done in country music performances. They both were from Texas, and may have shared the same tradition Davis inherited when he worked in Houston. [24]
Notes on Performance
Occasion: It might be too much to subtitle this album "six musicians in search of a singer," but that may have been what happened when studio musicians who had worked for Peacock Records in the 1950s were reassembled by Blacktop. The bass player, Lloyd Lambert, went looking for the retired Davis. The album was part reunion and part rediscovery of a blues singer.
Location: Southlake Recording Studios, Metairie, Los Angeles in February and March 1988. [25]
Notes on Performers
Blacktop Records was founded by Nauman Scott and his brother, Hammond Scott. The white boys had been raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, where they listened to bluesmen like John Lee Hooker and James Brown on radio. They established their blues revival company in New Orleans in 1981. [26]
Davis worked with Guitar Slim, [27] who, like King, was an early innovator on the electric guitar. Slim had begun performing in New Orleans with Frank Painia at the Dew Drop Inn. When Painia began having problems, he sent Eddie Jones to Hosea Hill in Thibodaux, an oil and sugar town southwest of New Orleans. There Slim worked with Hill’s band at the Sugar Bowl. [28]
Lambert was from Thibodaux, where he had played trumpet for Hill’s house band, the Serenaders. Lambert’s father was jazz guitarist in New Orleans. In the early 1950s, Lloyd switched to bass as local African-American tastes changed from big bands to rhythm and blues. When the New Orleans musicians’ union told Hill a musician needed to lead his Serenaders, he turned the band over to Lambert. [29]
After Slim moved to Thibodaux and began recording for Specialty Records, the Lloyd Lambert Orchestra began touring with him. The group also began backing other musicians on Specialty sessions, including Little Richard. [30] Penniman’s touring band, the Upsetters, included Grady Gaines on saxophone. [31] The two had met when Penniman was recording for Peacock Records in Houston. [32]
Davis came to Lambert’s attention when he asked Slim to listen to him sing before a performance in Mobile. Slim and Lambert hired him to appear before Slim as an opening act, and Davis followed Slim to Thibodaux. [33] When Slim died in 1959, Davis moved to Houston to work for Peacock Records where he made records demonstrating songs for Bland. It was there that Davis worked with Holliman. Peacock’s owner, Don Robey, was a difficult man, [34] and Davis left in 1966. [35]
Holliman was from Houston and had gone to work for Robey as a session musician in 1957. He accompanied Bland and gospel groups like the Dixie Hummingbirds. [36]
Availability
Album: Check Out Time. Blacktop Records BT-1043. 1989.
YouTube: uploaded by Ron Levy on 31 July 2012.
End Notes
1. For more on B.B. King, see the post for 13 April 2018.
2. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Be. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 229-230. King specifically mentioned Mike Bloomfield with Butterfield and Keith Richards with the Stones.
3. King. 229.
4. For more on the Bihari brothers, see the post for 13 April 2018.
5. King. 232.
6. King. 235.
7. King. 240. Lucille was his guitar.
8. Bobby Bland was a Memphis-based blues singer. King credited Charles Keil for bringing him and Bland to the attention of white academics. (King. 230). Keil structured Urban Blues around the contrasting styles of the two men. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966).
9. Steve Huey. "Ron Levy." All Music website.
10. "Thunderbird Davis, A Blues Singer, 53." Obituary published by The New York Times. 27 January 1992.
11. Huey.
12. "James Thunderbird Davis." Mobile Bay Wiki website. Davis was from Prichard, Alabama, which began as freedman’s town, but grew when whites working for the Mobile shipyards moved there. (Wikipedia. "Prichard, Alabama.")
13. It seemed unlikely King kept "Come by Here" in his repertoire after Fillmore, but copies were available to afficionados.
14. Levy was a songwriter, not simply a company employee seeking to enhance his income. He remembered, Davis "had a wonderful personality, enthusiastically sang some of my compositions, and we even wrote a few together." (Levy. Tales of a Road Dog: The Lowdown Along the Blues Highway. Pennsauken, New Jersey: BookBaby, 2013. No page numbers in on-line edition.)
15. Mobile Bay Wiki.
16. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by saying what sounded like "come on Grant." Holloway was known as Gristle by his friends. (Roger Wood. "Hollimon, Milton Howard Clarence." Handbook of Texas Online. Uploaded 15 June 2010; last updated 9 March 2017.)
17. Identified by Levy in YouTube notes. Davis introduced the solo by calling him Honey Gaines.
18. Discogs entry for the album include more saxophone players and another guitarist.
19. Discogs.
20. Levy, YouTube.
21. Blue Ox. Comment posted 4 December 2011. Amazon website for Checking Out.
22. Bob Wills was a western swing musician from Groesbeck, Texas. He made comments during his Texas Playboys instrumentals, and often introduced the soloists. He first became popular in the 1930s.
23. Ernest Tubb was a country singer from Crisp, Texas. He would always say "take it away Leon" before Leon Rhodes played a solo with the Texas Troubadours. His first hits were in the 1940s.
24. Wills said his comments didn’t come from medicine shows, but "came directly from playing and living close to Negroes, and that he never did it necessarily as show, but more as a way to express his feelings." (Quoted by Charles R. Townsend. San Antonio Rose. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976. 46. Cited by Wikipedia. "Bob Wills.")
25. All Music website posting for album.
26. Anthony Clark and Keith Spera. "Hammond and Nauman Scott: The Blues Brothers." Off Beat website. 1 January 1992.
27. Guitar Slim was born Eddie Jones in Greenwood, Mississippi. He was a flamboyant performer before artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry became popular. He anticipated later rock artists by exploiting distorted overtones in his guitar playing. (Wikipedia. "Guitar Slim.")
28. Jeff Hannusch. "Thibodaux’s Sugar Bowl." Off Beat website. 1 May 1999.
29. German Wikipedia. "Lloyd Lambert."
30. Wikipedia, Lambert.
31. Wikipedia. "Little Richard."
32. Wikipedia. "Grady Gaines."
33. Mobile Bay Wiki.
34. Wikipedia. "Don Robey."
35. Mobile Bay Wiki.
36. Wood.
Friday, April 13, 2018
B.B. King - Come by Here
Topic: Dance Music
B.B. King recorded the first commercial dance version of "Come by Here" in 1958. The simple substitution of "baby" for "oh Lord" changed the import of the lyrics without altering the AAAB form. The verses used incremental repetition to advance a narrative that went from "I love you" and "I want you" to "we’ll get married" and "raise a family."
At the time he made this recording, King "had a beefed-up sax and brass section," [1] and that’s all I could hear. If King was playing guitar, he was drowned out by them.
Even though it wasn’t the instrumentation one expected on a B.B. King record, the same kind of interaction existed between it and the human voice. The brass set a refrain pattern in the opening measures. Thereafter, every time King sang a line, it answered.
The record was made in the period when rock ’n’ roll had replaced rhythm and blues, and his audience was shrinking. [2] He told David Ritz, he didn’t know if "it was the financial difficulties I was facing, or the fact that my career felt stalled. Maybe it was the monotony of the road" that made him want to marry and settle down. [3]
That may be one reason he wrote the words he did. However, he also told Ritz that Memphis, Tennessee, had felt less like home after his father had moved to California [4]. He added
"My mother stayed in the memory of my heart as a missing link [. . .] I wish that the pain in my heart that came from missing my mother would subside. But it didn’t, and it doesn’t, and her lost love remains forever lost." [5]
He may have learned the song in the local Church of God in Christ church [16] before she died when he was ten-years-old. [7] He remembered:
"As a kid, I was a regular churchgoer. I felt the spirit of God in gospel music and dreamt of being a gospel man myself." [8]
After she died, he was
"still tied to the church and didn’t quite give up the notion of preaching or at least singing the gospel. I was a strong voice in the choir and was learning to use my guitar to accompany spiritual songs." [9]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: B.B. King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: brass, reeds [10]
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
King-Taub [11]
BMI Mod Music Pub.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: Come by HERE (short-shorter-long)
Verses: his own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: baby
Basic Form: six-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Literary Devices: incremental repetition
Ending: none
Unique Features: secularization of a religious song
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3 family
Tempo: moderate
Rhythm: syncopated
Basic Structure: repetition in different keys; modulation occurred after every two verses
Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: King sang a complete line and instrumental group repeated its refrain
Notes on Performers
King was one of the most important musicians in the creation of electrified urban blues after World War II. He was raised by his grandmother to be a sharecropper in Mississippi, but his grandmother’s sister had a phonograph and records by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson. [12] His great-aunt’s son was a Delta bluesman, Bukka White. [13]
He learned his first guitar chords from the local COGIC preacher when he was seven-years-old. [14] King remembered Archie Fair’s
"sermon is like music and his music—both the song from his mouth and the sound of his guitar—thrills me until I wanna get up and dance. He says one thing and the congregation says it back, back and forth, back and forth, until we’re rocking together in rhythm that won’t stop. His voice is low and rough and his guitar is high and sweet; they seem to sing to each other, conversing in some heavenly language I need to learn. The choir joins in, and the congregation joins the choir, and I’m right in the middle of a universe of music filled with nothing but pure spirit. There’s an old piano and tambourines, hand clapping and foot-stomping and shouting that starts in your toe and goes through the top of your head. The beat is steady and strong as the beat in your heart. No room for fear in here; no room for doubt; it’s a celebration of love that gets even better when, after services, Mama says Reverend and his wife are coming over to visit." [15]
King first heard the blues that was emerging in the Mississippi delta on a Memphis area radio station in 1941. He moved there in 1948 where he had his own radio program. Once he started touring, he never had a settled home, while his music became associated with both Memphis and Chicago. [16]
Availability
Single: Kent 319. 1959. Uploaded to YouTube by Miguel A Garcia on 15 July 2014.
Album: B. B. King Wails. Crown Records 5115. 1958. [17] Uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group North America on 25 January 2017. (It had a more mellow sound than Garcia’s version.)
Reissue: Twist With B. B. King. Crown Records CLP 5248. 1962. [18]
Reissue: Let Me Love You. Kent KST 513. 1964. [19]
Reissue: "Come by Here" has been included in several reissues and compilations, especially after King died on 14 May 2015. One was uploaded to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises on 18 February 2016.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Me. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 188.
2. King. 186.
3. King. 195.
4. King. 195.
5. King. 195.
6. King. 16. Charles Harrison Mason and the Church of God in Christ were discussed in the post for 23 December 2017.
7. King. 34.
8. King. 193.
9. King. 42.
10. Two people have posted the names of people they thought played on this recording: Blues Fan, "B.B. King," his Japanese website, and Anita Pravits, "B.B. King," Keep on Living website. Blues Fan said the trumpets were played by Kenneth Sands and Henry Boozier. Praivts believed the men were Sands, Boozier, or Hobart Dotson. Pravits suggested Pluma Davis played trombone, but Blues Fan did not mention the instrument.
Blues Fan said King used an alto (Lawrence Burdine), tenor (Johnny Board) and baritone (Barry Hubert or Herman Green) saxophone. Pravits listed Burdine, Board, and Hubert. They both mentioned Marshall York on bass, but Blues Fan said Lloyd Green played piano while Pravits wrote it was Milliard Lee. Blue Fan said Ted Curry was on drums, but Pravits thought it was Curry or Sonny Freeman.
Wikipedia indicated King’s first band included Burdin, Curry, Millard Lee, and Sands. ("B.B. King."). King’s autobiography included an undated photograph of the band that included the same men, Burdine, Curry, Lee, and Sands. (King, opposite page 178).
11. King’s recording company was owned by the Bihari Brothers. Jules Bihari took part of King’s royalties by claiming he, Taub, was one of the composers. (Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers.")
12. King. 20-23.
13. King. 24.
14. King. 18.
15. King. 16-17.
16. Wikipedia, King.
17. Discogs entry for album.
18. Discogs entry for album.
19. Discogs entry for album.
B.B. King recorded the first commercial dance version of "Come by Here" in 1958. The simple substitution of "baby" for "oh Lord" changed the import of the lyrics without altering the AAAB form. The verses used incremental repetition to advance a narrative that went from "I love you" and "I want you" to "we’ll get married" and "raise a family."
At the time he made this recording, King "had a beefed-up sax and brass section," [1] and that’s all I could hear. If King was playing guitar, he was drowned out by them.
Even though it wasn’t the instrumentation one expected on a B.B. King record, the same kind of interaction existed between it and the human voice. The brass set a refrain pattern in the opening measures. Thereafter, every time King sang a line, it answered.
The record was made in the period when rock ’n’ roll had replaced rhythm and blues, and his audience was shrinking. [2] He told David Ritz, he didn’t know if "it was the financial difficulties I was facing, or the fact that my career felt stalled. Maybe it was the monotony of the road" that made him want to marry and settle down. [3]
That may be one reason he wrote the words he did. However, he also told Ritz that Memphis, Tennessee, had felt less like home after his father had moved to California [4]. He added
"My mother stayed in the memory of my heart as a missing link [. . .] I wish that the pain in my heart that came from missing my mother would subside. But it didn’t, and it doesn’t, and her lost love remains forever lost." [5]
He may have learned the song in the local Church of God in Christ church [16] before she died when he was ten-years-old. [7] He remembered:
"As a kid, I was a regular churchgoer. I felt the spirit of God in gospel music and dreamt of being a gospel man myself." [8]
After she died, he was
"still tied to the church and didn’t quite give up the notion of preaching or at least singing the gospel. I was a strong voice in the choir and was learning to use my guitar to accompany spiritual songs." [9]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: B.B. King
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Accompaniment: brass, reeds [10]
Rhythm Accompaniment: drum set
Credits
King-Taub [11]
BMI Mod Music Pub.
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: Come by HERE (short-shorter-long)
Verses: his own
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: none
Special Terms: baby
Basic Form: six-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: statement-refrain
Literary Devices: incremental repetition
Ending: none
Unique Features: secularization of a religious song
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3 family
Tempo: moderate
Rhythm: syncopated
Basic Structure: repetition in different keys; modulation occurred after every two verses
Singing Style: one syllable to one note
Vocal-Orchestral Dynamics: King sang a complete line and instrumental group repeated its refrain
Notes on Performers
King was one of the most important musicians in the creation of electrified urban blues after World War II. He was raised by his grandmother to be a sharecropper in Mississippi, but his grandmother’s sister had a phonograph and records by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson. [12] His great-aunt’s son was a Delta bluesman, Bukka White. [13]
He learned his first guitar chords from the local COGIC preacher when he was seven-years-old. [14] King remembered Archie Fair’s
"sermon is like music and his music—both the song from his mouth and the sound of his guitar—thrills me until I wanna get up and dance. He says one thing and the congregation says it back, back and forth, back and forth, until we’re rocking together in rhythm that won’t stop. His voice is low and rough and his guitar is high and sweet; they seem to sing to each other, conversing in some heavenly language I need to learn. The choir joins in, and the congregation joins the choir, and I’m right in the middle of a universe of music filled with nothing but pure spirit. There’s an old piano and tambourines, hand clapping and foot-stomping and shouting that starts in your toe and goes through the top of your head. The beat is steady and strong as the beat in your heart. No room for fear in here; no room for doubt; it’s a celebration of love that gets even better when, after services, Mama says Reverend and his wife are coming over to visit." [15]
King first heard the blues that was emerging in the Mississippi delta on a Memphis area radio station in 1941. He moved there in 1948 where he had his own radio program. Once he started touring, he never had a settled home, while his music became associated with both Memphis and Chicago. [16]
Availability
Single: Kent 319. 1959. Uploaded to YouTube by Miguel A Garcia on 15 July 2014.
Album: B. B. King Wails. Crown Records 5115. 1958. [17] Uploaded to YouTube by Universal Music Group North America on 25 January 2017. (It had a more mellow sound than Garcia’s version.)
Reissue: Twist With B. B. King. Crown Records CLP 5248. 1962. [18]
Reissue: Let Me Love You. Kent KST 513. 1964. [19]
Reissue: "Come by Here" has been included in several reissues and compilations, especially after King died on 14 May 2015. One was uploaded to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises on 18 February 2016.
End Notes
1. B.B. King [Riley B. King]. Blues All Around Me. With David Ritz. New York: Avon Books, 1996. 188.
2. King. 186.
3. King. 195.
4. King. 195.
5. King. 195.
6. King. 16. Charles Harrison Mason and the Church of God in Christ were discussed in the post for 23 December 2017.
7. King. 34.
8. King. 193.
9. King. 42.
10. Two people have posted the names of people they thought played on this recording: Blues Fan, "B.B. King," his Japanese website, and Anita Pravits, "B.B. King," Keep on Living website. Blues Fan said the trumpets were played by Kenneth Sands and Henry Boozier. Praivts believed the men were Sands, Boozier, or Hobart Dotson. Pravits suggested Pluma Davis played trombone, but Blues Fan did not mention the instrument.
Blues Fan said King used an alto (Lawrence Burdine), tenor (Johnny Board) and baritone (Barry Hubert or Herman Green) saxophone. Pravits listed Burdine, Board, and Hubert. They both mentioned Marshall York on bass, but Blues Fan said Lloyd Green played piano while Pravits wrote it was Milliard Lee. Blue Fan said Ted Curry was on drums, but Pravits thought it was Curry or Sonny Freeman.
Wikipedia indicated King’s first band included Burdin, Curry, Millard Lee, and Sands. ("B.B. King."). King’s autobiography included an undated photograph of the band that included the same men, Burdine, Curry, Lee, and Sands. (King, opposite page 178).
11. King’s recording company was owned by the Bihari Brothers. Jules Bihari took part of King’s royalties by claiming he, Taub, was one of the composers. (Wikipedia. "Bihari Brothers.")
12. King. 20-23.
13. King. 24.
14. King. 18.
15. King. 16-17.
16. Wikipedia, King.
17. Discogs entry for album.
18. Discogs entry for album.
19. Discogs entry for album.
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