Tale #22.Blind Willie Johnson's last record

Over the space of a couple of days in April 1930 the Columbia recording team were in Atlanta and captured some seminal recordings, including what proved to be the final session from the visiting Blind Willie Johnson [born 22nd January 1897, Texas]. Much of his work had been proven from his street performances and he'd already recorded "You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond" under a slightly different title a couple of years earlier. His gruff vocal on this gospel piece is sweetened with a female voice, long thought to be his second wife Angeline though this is now disputed. In a recording career of just three years and thirty sides, his composition credits also include "Nobody's Fault But Mine". "John the Revelator", "Soul Of A Man" and "Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground".

"You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond" was covered in 1994 by Eric Bibb for the album "Spirit and the Blues" [Opus3] with deft bottleneck guitar accompaniment from Goran Wennerbrandt. On STAR BLUES on 29th May 2011 we featured both artists as a back-to-back feature. The anthology of Atlanta blues on Fantastic Voyage was the source for Johnson's 1930 version and we went to Eric's album on the audiophile label Opus3.

Tale #21.Bob Dylan's muse from before recorded blues

Bob Dylan's earliest musical memories included songs from the very first days of recorded blues. Most likely he heard the Bo Chatmon version of Corrine Corrina from 1928 or the one by Western Swing maestro Bob Wills in 1940. Actually the song is one of the best selling pieces of sheet music from at least a decade before, published by Roger Graham.

With a bit or artistic licence in the lyrics, Bob put his take on the subject onto side two of his second album "Freewheelin Bob Dylan"; released early in 1963. The piece quickly became a staple favourite for the artists playing in Greenwich Village that year.

The other noted interpretation worth seeking out is the one done by Big Joe Turner for Atlantic. Our selection for STAR BLUES drew the track from the deleted antology of Bo Carter's work that Catfish Records compiled some time ago. There's no readily identified cd issue for "Corrine, Corrina".

Tale #20. At Last

The 1941 original of "At Last" was written for a film called "Orchestra Wives". Etta James cut it in 1960 as the title track of her first album on Chess Records label. Though only a moderate hit at the time it has become an evergreen staple on radio ever since, currently it is being used to accompany an advert for Marks & Spencer.

Others like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Nicks, Eva Cassidy and Joni Mitchell have done covers though none match Etta's reading of the piece. She was miffed however that Beyonce got to sing it in the film "Cadillac Records" and at President Obama's inauguration early in 2009.

Our STAR BLUES feature on 15th May 2011 used the version on her "At Her Best" cd anthology compiled by MCA/Chess.

Tale #19.A Song About Sex and Cars by Robert Johnson

Between 1932 and 1938 the Hudson Motor Co. of Detroit made an inexpensive but powerful car called the TERRAPLANE (the model had been launched by the flying ace Amelia Earhart.

During his first sessions in November 1936, Robert Johnson used the car as inspiration for a song as a barely disguised metaphor for sex. His urgent guitar and desperate voice saw to that and he had pre-dated Chuck Berry and rock’n’roll in that way by the best part of twenty years. “Terraplane Blues” was backed with “Kind Hearted Woman” for Johnson’s 78rpm release on Vocalion in 1937.

STAR BLUES on 8^th May 2011 was devoted to playing one version of each of all 29 of Robert Johnson’s songs.

Tale #18.Lead Belly's Alabama Bound

Huddie Ledbetter was far from the ignorant thug that was implied by his physique and prison record - an image backed up with tales of being pardoned for murder not once but twice. The musicologist Alan Lomax tried to put up bail for him after an assault charge in 1939 and lead him to a 1940 recording session for RCA with the Golden Gate Quartet. Neither party was keen on the idea but more songs were recorded than could fit onto the resulting album.

"Alabama Bound" was a song from the oral tradition that Huddie would have picked up early in his career, though he had to teach it to the gospel group just before the recordings. Though the album sold slowly at first he pronounced himself happy with the results. Within he weeks he was back to cut more songs that would be part of the historic Library of Congress albums. From there Lead Belly went in search of a career in Hollywood and got as far as doing a screen test. The song was the kickstart to Lonnie Donegan and the British Skiffle Movement - the rest is history.

STAR BLUES chose the song to mark the foul weather currently causing so much devastation in Alabama. We used the volume of Lead Belly recordings issued by Orbis publications in the Blues Collection magazines. Details of a current cd release of this version of the song are not found.

Tale #17.Sublime Christine McVie

The pianist in Chicken Shack - Christine Perfect - had a crush on the guitarist in Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green but in August 1968 she married bass player John McVie instead. Her band had just recorded and released the album "OK Ken". She left the group to set up and run the new family home.

One of the tracks was the cover of a song written by Etta James and her friend Ellington Jordan during her visits to him while in prison. The vocal on Chicken Shack's version caught a different mood to Etta's rendition: a sublime sweetness that only made the pain in the lyrics more intense. The single "I'd Rather Go Blind" got to number 14 in the charts early in 1969 and Christine McVie had to be coaxed back from "retirement". She didn't stay long with them and shortly joined her husband in Fleetwood Mac. That's another story.

STAR BLUES on 24th April 2011 did a special on British artists in blues and again used the 1997 anthology "Blue Horizon Story, vol.1" as source for the track.

Tale #16.Hubert Sumlin in at the start

The lack of take-up for Mike Vernon's R&B combo "The Mojo Men" lead to his new project, the magazine "R&B Monthly". The editorial of the January 1965 issue canvassed for support if the magazine were to issue a 7-inch single with new recordings by Howlin' Wolf's guitarist Hubert Sumlin.

In truth, Sumlin had already been to Mike's home and cut two songs in the living room; the response to the magazine was such that Mike set up the Blue Horizon label in February 1965 to release "Across The Board" b/w "Sumlin Boogie" by Hubert Sumlin (Blue Horizon 1000, rec. 1964) The single was sold by mail order from R&B Monthly magazine for 8/6 plus 1/- post and packing. Just 99 copies were pressed because the threshold for Purchase Tax was 100 - payable at the time of manufacture not after sale. By April they had all been sold.

STAR BLUES on 17th April took the track from the three disc anthology complied by Mike Vernon: "The Blue Horizon Story 1965-1970, Vol. 1" on Columbia.