Blues Harp

¤  Harmonica Blues → http://www.bluesharp.ca/legends/ ←

¤  Sonny Boy Williamson  [1912-1965]

Why Alex ‘Rice’ Miller took the name Sonny Boy Williamson is a mystery. John Lee ‘Sonny Boy’ Williamson had already made a name for himself in the early 40s as a harp master and blues idol, only to be murdered in 1948. Miller adopted the name soon after, even claiming that the original man was a hoax. Upon his arrival in Chicago, he set about recording a body of work that remains unequalled in blues history for its synthesis of musical and lyrical mastery.

«Yeah, we know these sounds. These sounds belong to one man.
One man from Mississippi, USA.  One man known as the wizard of the harp.
One man known as the menace. And his name is Sonny Boy Williamson.»

♦  ‘Bring It All Home’  ⇓

Baby baby – I’m gonna bring it on home to you 

I done bought my ticket i got my load – Conductor done hollered «all aboard»

Take my seat and ride way back and watch this train move down the track

 

Baby baby – I’m gonna bring it on home to you

I think about the good times i once have had – Soul got happy now my heart got glad

I think about the way you love me too – You can bet your life i’m comin home to you

 

I’m goin’ home . . . I’m gonna bring it on home now … Bring it on home to you

♦  ‘My Younger Days’  ⇓  (1964)

In my younger days, I wished I knowed then like I know now . . .
You know, I wouldn’t be  begging nobody to let me in the house
Back in those days, I wished I’d knowed then like I know now . . .
The money that I was throwing away, I could have saved it and bought my own house
(And I’d’ve had a home)
In my younger days, I wish I knowed then like I know now
Back in those days, boys  I just wished to god I knowed then like I know now
I wouldn’t be standing ‘round, begging, please let me in the house

. . . Eyes got so dim I feel like a double night
All my money is gone – and the woman won’t treat me right
What would you do? Tell me, what would you do . . .

⇓  ‘Don’t Start Me Talking’

♦  ‘Keep It To Yourself’  ↓

Baby, do me a favor, keep our business to yourself.
Please, darling, do me a favor, keep our business to yourself.
I don’t want you to tell nobody in your family,
And don’t mention it to nobody else.

Don’t tell your mother, Don’t tell your father,
Don’t tell your sister, Don’t mention it to your brother,
Please, darling, keep our business to yourself.
Don’t you tell nobody, And don’t mention it to nobody else.

You have a husband, I have a wife,
If you start to talking, That’s gonna mess up our life,
Please, please baby, keep our business to yourself.
Don’t you tell nobody,
And don’t mention it to nobody else.
Goodbye darling 

∇   ‘I Am A Lonely Man’  ↓

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I am a lonely man and I don’t like being by myself
I’m a lonely man and I don’t like being by myself
If you can’t be with me, baby, I’m gonna find myself somebody else

I am so disgusted I just can’t sleep at night
So disgusted baby, that i just can’t sleep at night
I got to eat my breakfast in the morning and my teeth and tongue begin to fight

You don’t have to talk – I will talk for you
You don’t have to walk that good – Y’know I’ll take time and walk with you –
Let me hold your hand
Little girl I’ll make you understand
You know you ain’t nothing but a little kind but you forgot I was your man

♦  ‘Your Funeral & My Trial’  ↓

Please come home to your daddy, and explain yourself to me
Because I and you are man and wife, tryin’ to start a family
I’m beggin’ you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
If you can’t treat me no better,

it gotta be your funeral and my trial

When I and you first got together, ‘t was on one Friday night
We spent only two lovely hours together, and the world knows alright
I’m just beggin’ you baby, please cut out that off the wall jive
You know you gotta treat me better,

if you don’t it gotta be your funeral and my trial

 

Alright The good Lord made the world and everything was in it
The way my baby love is some solid sentiment
She can love to heal the sick and she can love to raise the dead
You think I’m jokin’ but you better believe what I say
I’m beggin’ you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
Yeah, you gotta treat me better,

or it gotta be your funeral and my trial

¶  This is how Levon Helm remembers Sonny Boy Williamson:

He was the king of the delta blues in our area, a friend and disciple of the late Robert Johnson, though Sonny Boy was older. (His passport gave his birthdate as 1909, but 1899 and 1894 have also been suggested.) Sonny Boy had traveled with Johnson Turing Robert’s brief delta stardom in the 1930s. They were regular performers on street corners and in the juke joints of Helena and Elaine, where Robert’s hit records like “Terraplane Blues” were well known, and passed through Marvell on the way to Helena. Robert lived with a woman and her son.

After Robert Johnson was killed in 1938 –allegedly poisoned by a jealous husband- Sonny Boy teamed up with Robert’s stepson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, and kept Johnson’s music alive. Around 1941 they began regular  broadcasts on the Interstate Grocery Company’s King Biscuit Time show on KFFA in Helena. Sonny Boy blew harp and Robert Jr. played electric guitar. It was the first time many delta residents –and that might have included Muddy Waters- had ever heard the instrument. Sonny Boy’s singing became so popular in Arkansas and his native Mississippi that the company put out a new product: Sonny Boy Cornmeal (still sold in the South) . . .

This Wheel’s On Fire  [1993]

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¤  James Cotton   [1935-2017]

Born in Tunica, Mississippi, in 1935, Cotton fell under the spell of the legendary Sonny Boy Williamson at the tender age of nine and quickly became his protégé. Over the course of six years, Cotton lived, worked and traveled with Williamson, eventually assimilating many of his signature licks. Cotton was in Memphis in the early ‘50s and landed a gig with Howlin’ Wolf, recording “Saddle My Pony” at Sun Studios. His breakthrough “Cotton Crop Blues” was released in 1954, and not long after, he began his 12-year association with Muddy Waters, when Waters passed through town looking for a harp player. Cotton landed the gig, and worked with Muddy on the road and in the studio, recording many of the seminal Chess sessions.

When Cotton eventually left the Muddy Waters Band in 1966 to strike out on his own, he secured a contract with Verve and recorded four albums for them. With the Muddy Waters Band on his resume, Cotton was able to cross over into the burgeoning blues-rock market of the day.

Cotton signed with Alligator Records and in ‘84 released the successful “High Compression.” His next album, “Live From Chicago…Mr. Superharp Himself!,” came out in 1986 and was his second album on Alligator. In 1987, Blind Pig released “Take Me Back,” an album that returned Cotton to his roots and earned a Grammy nomination.

After signing with the Verve label in ’94 and releasing ”Living the Blues,” Cotton was awarded a Grammy for the 1996 album, “Deep in the Blues.”

“Baby, Don’t You Tear My Clothes,” was Cotton’s third solo release on the Telarc label. He joined the label in 2000 with the release of “Fire Down Under the Hill,” followed by “35th Anniversary Blues Jam,” two years later.

In 2010 Cotton released “Giant,” for Alligator Records, and also celebrates his 66th year as a professional Bluesman. In June 2010, Cotton was honored at New York’s Lincoln Center, where his friends Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, Taj Mahal, Shemekia Copeland and others paid tribute in an all-star concert. There James Cotton played to yet another sold-out venue, with fans cheering the man known worldwide as “Mr. Superharp,” an undisputed giant of the blues

◊  ‘Dealing With The Devil’  ↓  [1995]

Now, my baby wasn’t even decided
About our weddin’ ring
When it come to our marryin’
It didn’t seem to ‘mount to a other thing

But I been dealin’ with the devil
I been dealin’ with the devil
I believe I been dealin’ with the devil
My woman don’t love me, no mo’

Now, you know, my mother, she said one thing
You know an then grandmother said the same
‘You keep on foolin’ ‘round, Sonny Boy
‘Women, really gon’ change your name’

I been dealin’ with the devil . . .
My woman don’t love me, no mo’

(harmonica)  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Now, you know, I’ve got the meanest woman
The meanest woman you most ev’r seen
She sleep wit a ice pick in her hand
Man, an she fights all in her dream

I sooner be sleepin’ with the devil . . .
My woman don’t love me, no mo’

Ah, you know I been havin’
You know, little, you know, friendly
Just friendly with the devil , you know

Yeah, but I got in little trouble
I don’t do that no mo’, watch!

(harmonica)

Now, you know I ain’t goin’ down
You know, this big road by myself
Now, an if I can’t take you
I’m gonna carry somebody else

‘Cause I been dealin’ with the devil, now
I been dealin’ with the devil …
My woman don’t love me, no mo’

◊  Down At Your Buryin’  ↓

I’m gonna get big boy Hogans – Come down and dig your grave
I’ll be standing right there watching when they throw that cold dirt in your face

Woman I’ll be down at your buryin’ – Ridin’ ‘round in my V-8 Ford
Well you think you so smart?
Well, I declare you don’t know . . .

Now when you draw on your insurance woman
You better make it sick and accident too
So when you’re dead and gone your people see just what did become of you . . .

↑  ‘The Red Rooster’         

I had a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day . . .
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way

Oh, them dogs begin to bark, hounds begin to howl . . .
Oh, watch out strange kin people, little red rooster’s on the prowl

If you see my little red rooster, please drag him on home . . .
There ain’t no peace in the barnyard since my little red rooster’s been gone

∇ ‘Black Night’  ↓  [1990]

Nobody cares about me – I don’t even has a friend
My baby’s gone and left me – When will my troubles end?

Black night … is falling and, Gee! How I hate to be alone!
I keep crying for my baby and I guess another day is gone

I has no one to talk to – to tell my troubles to
It don´t seem like I’m living since I lost you

Black night… is falling – Gee, how I hate to be alone!
I keep crying for my baby – Now yes another day is gone

My mother has the trouble – My father has it too
My brother’s in the army and I don’t know just what to do

Black night, black night is falling and Gee, how I hate to be alone!
Keep crying for my baby and I guess another day is gone

♦  Slow Blues ↓  (Blues in My Sleep)

♦  ‘The Creeper’  ⇓

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¤  Little Walter   [1930-1968]

Considered by many to be the greatest blues harmonica player ever, Marion “Little Walter” Jacobs rose from obscurity in Marksville to international acclaim in the blues scene of Chicago. During the first half of the 1950s he became one of the key architects of the electrified Chicago blues style, an ensemble, collaborative, urban approach that became the defining sound of both electric blues and blues-based rock throughout the remainder of the twentieth century and beyond.

♦  ‘Blue Midnight’  ↓ 1952

◊  ‘It’s Too Late Brother’  ↓

 

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¤  Billy Branch

A figure of the note on the Chicago blues scene since he was discovered by Willie Dixon in 1969, and after more than four decades, he’s grown from a young buck bringing new blood to the blues scene to an elder statesman who stands tall for the music’s traditions.

♦   ‘Juke’  ↓  [1982]

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¤ → Carey Bell    [1936-2007]

Carey Bell was one of the very few players of his generation who didn’t learn his craft by listening to old records, but by studying directly under the masters. «Little Walter, he showed me a lot of things,» said Bell, «but Big Walter, he was crazy. He did all kinds of shit other harp players couldn’t do.»

♦  w/ Louisiana Red-(g)+ Jimmy Rodgers-(g)+ Lovie Lee-(p)+ Queen Sylvia Embry-(b)+ Charles»Honey Boy»Otis ↓ (1983)

•  ‘She’s Worse’  ↑

Babe, everything you did worse

Baby, if you shut your big mouth [. . . ?]

When I leave you honey – walking slow too slow

Got to leave you honey – walking slow too slow

Got to tell ‘em everybody now you don’t want me no more

♦  ◊  Carey & Lurrie Bell ↓ ‘When I Get Drunk’

When I get drunk, tell me who’s gonna carry me home?
I ain’t now, but I won’t be sober long

When I get drunk I think about that little gal of mine . . .
You know I can’t get her off my mind

You got me guessin’ but a few times I need to know . . .
That woman got me doin’ things I never done before

When I get drunk, tell me who’s gonna carry me home?
I ain’t drunk right now, but I won’t be sober long

↑  Short Dress  

She wears her dress so short – comin’ up above her knees …
Gonna show her big fine legs to just anybody she please

I give a party last week – You came a taken the prize …
Wearing that short dress , way up above your thighs

÷            ÷                        ÷            ÷

•→ Big Walter Horton & Carey Bell:  ‘Temptation Blues’ ⇐

¤   Big Walter Horton   [1917-1981]

Walter Horton, also known as Big Walter or Shakey Horton, worked mostly as a sideman. Always described as shy and nervous, he preferred this role to that of a bandleader. His playing graces numerous records behind Johnny Shines, Johnny Young, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, and others. He also taught a number of younger players, including Charlie Musselwhite, Madcat Ruth, and Carey Bell.

•  ‘Hard-Hearted Woman’  ↑

Hard hearted woman, she studies evil all the time
Hard hearted woman, she studies evil all the time
Well she must have been mistreated, to have evil on her mind
Well if you be my baby, I tell you what I would do
I would work hard for ya’ darlin’, and bring my dough to you
Oh she is a, hard hearted woman, who studies evil all the time
Well you must have been mistreated, to have the same thing on your mind

     

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•→ ‘Walter’s Boogie’ ⇐

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