Album of the month

Ik heb wel even serieus getwijfeld over mijn bluesplaat van de maand. Want ja, hoe maak je zo’n keuze tussen al dat goud? Ik draai elke dag wel een of meerdere platen en mijn tweedehands vinyl collectie groeit! Kort geleden vond ik nog een BB King plaat uit 1972. Het geknetter van de plaat, de jonge stem van BB, het intro van It’s My Own Fault Baby… heerlijk! Dit is dan ook met de paplepel ingegoten door mijn pa, er bestaan video’s van mij als klein meisje dansend op Bad Case of Love. Maar waar ik toch ook nooit genoeg van krijg is Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. Ik denk dat ikelke dag wel The Pious Bird of Good Omen kan draaien. Het is dan misschien wel een verzamelplaat maar de flow van dit album en natuurlijk de sound van Green is naar mijn idee perfect! Op deze plaat o.a.: Need Your Love So Bad, Coming Home, Albatross, Stop Messin Around, Black Magic Woman, en twee tracks met Eddie Boyd (The Big Boat & Just the Blues) maar hoor je vooral ook de invloeden van de early blues. En ohja, hij is heerlijk om op mee te bassen en ik heb ‘m dan ook nog eens voor een prikkie gescoord! Vers uit 1969!

Sometimes music comes along that not only reaches your ears but shoots straight into your heart. That happened to me when I discovered the LP Live in Amsterdam by vocalist Beth Hart and guitarist Joe Bonamassa. What happens there on stage is pure fire. This live recording, recorded at the Royal Theater Carré in Amsterdam, is no ordinary concert. It is a musical explosion in which two worlds come together: the raw, emotional power of Beth Hart and the virtuoso, bluesy guitar playing of Joe Bonamassa. What makes this record so special is the energy. Everything is real. No filter, no tricks – just pure passion and incredible musicality. From the first note you feel: this is not a gig, this is an experience. How Beth Hart performs I’d Rather Go Blind with that dark undertone and vulnerable intensity is like hearing her heart break with every sentence she sings. She doesn’t sing about emotion, she is emotion. For me, it really became personal when I started rehearsing Close to My Fire with “Vintage 5,” of which I am a vocalist. What began as a musical choice became a deeper exploration. With each rehearsal, I became more captivated by Beth Hart. Her timing, her expression, her power … it’s as if she puts her whole soul into every phrase. And it didn’t stay with that one song, Fire on te Floor (from a later LP, by the way) soon followed on our playlist. Because of the LP Live in Amsterdam, my love for the blues has only grown. Not as a genre, but as a feeling. Blues is not a style – it’s a voice, a vibration, a truth. And Live in Amsterdam is proof to me that music can transform you.”

On my birthday, May 18, 1978, my brother-in-law gave me a blues LP. I already had quite a few LPs, mostly jazz but also some blues. The latter category was severely underrepresented. I had a few old LPs from the bargain bin, such as B.B. King, once bought for ƒ 5.00. But personally, I was more fond of Old Style Jazz, Dixieland, and New Orleans Jazz. However, my brother-in-law and I often went to the former Vredenburg Theater to see concerts by blues and jazz musicians. Lionel Hampton, Buddy Tate, but also Fernest Arcenaux, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells. The birthday present turned out to be an LP by Luther Allison, Love Me Papa. Pure Chicago blues. My brother-in-law admitted that he had already recorded the LP on cassette tape before giving it to me. The next day, after the visitors had left, I put the LP on. Those first notes from Luther’s guitar, that first strum from Luther: Love Me Papa… I was sold. Goosebumps! Second song, the intro by Sid Winfield on piano. Third song, Luther’s guitar again on Last Night I Lost the Best Friend I Ever Had. And so on. What a work of art. I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved by an artist since. I now have 32 of Luther’s albums and saw him perform 13 times before he passed away. Sadly, he died far too young on August 12, 1997. Five days later, on the 17th, he would have turned 59. On August 17, 1989, I was at his concert in Vredenburg, and that day he turned 50. Fortunately, I still have his albums.

Chris Whitley, who is that? That’s what I wondered when I first heard his name at the conservatory a few years ago. I didn’t expect any surprises in the “Blues” module classes. But my teacher played this record in guitar class and I didn’t know what I was hearing. So raw, so rootsy, yet so refreshing! He immediately reminded me of the blues fathers: Lead Belly, Son House, Charlie Patton… The songs often contain the same trance-like groove with an atypical vocal melody. The recordings are also primitive: one man, one resonator guitar, recorded with one microphone in an old barn. He wasn’t very well known in Europe, but he was in America! There, he even played in arenas with his band in the 1990s. His biggest hit, “Big Sky Country,” from the album Living With The Law, was produced by Daniel Lanois. But the success didn’t feel right to him. He went back to his roots, as a rough diamond. The record company dropped him, so he went back to playing in small clubs. Chris Whitley is a huge inspiration for my own songs, and we also cover the song ‘Ball Peen Hammer’. Sadly, he passed away in 2005, but if you want to experience his vibe live, you can always go and see/listen to his daughter. Belgian singer Trixie Whitley’s music is more alternative, but you can clearly hear who her father is!

February 1980! Among the shelves of the warehouse at Van Dam Hospital in Rotterdam, my day job at the time, I heard… or so I thought for a moment, Little Walter blaring from the radio! No!!!…. that can’t be… Little Walter? On the radio!!?? With a short sprint, I was just in time to hear the announcement, memorising the name the Fabulous Thunderbirds! I also heard “Saturday the 28th at Exit”! There, they completely surprised, astonished and overwhelmed every die-hard Blues fan in attendance. As far as I (and many others) were concerned, it was the beginning of a new Blues boom that would last well into the 1990s. “Girls Go Wild”, copy 1, was then played to death (it almost cost me my relationship! Lol!) and was followed within a few months by copy no. 2!! So why is this record so good?! Apart from the instrumental mastery and profound stylistic knowledge of the main players, the fantastic Old School sound (Bob Sullivan), the idiosyncratic choice of repertoire and the quality of the original songs are, in my opinion, completely at odds with everything that had been produced by (white) blues musicians before. In particular, the so-called harp-driven blues (think Little Walter, etc.) had rarely been heard before! Obscure (old school). “Louisiana Swamp Pop” and “Texas Blues”, all played “with an attitude”, made this record a blueprint for a new generation of blues musicians, who mainly went back to the originators for their inspiration! After roughly half a century, it is still a wonderful record, for me in the list of classics such as “Live at the Regal”, “Hoodoo Man Blues”, etc., which has more than stood the test of time.

My favourite blues record of the month is Hoodoo Man Blues from 1965 by Junior Wells with Buddy Guy on guitar. My favourite track on it is “Ships on the Ocean”. I think it’s such an atmospheric song. The title track is also cool. The only song I’ve been playing live from the album for years is “Snatch It Back”. Junior plays with his voice and blues harp in beautiful harmony with Buddy Guy. I met Junior Wells in 1995 when Mc Anthony’s blues gang from Roosendaal was the support act at the Roode Leeuw on 9 May. It was a really cool and energetic performance and Junior Wells was super relaxed, friendly and good fun. He signed my old grandad Janus’s shirt with “Junior Wells 9-5” in huge letters and the drummer Willy Hayes signed the back. I also kept his empty packet of Kool Menthol cigarettes. Junior Wells said that he had smoked a joint once in his life but immediately fell down the stairs. That was enough for him, so he stayed away from them after that. Junior Wells also played with Buddy Guy as band members in the Muddy Waters Blues Band. These men always push me in the right direction musically and emotionally with their beautiful, powerful, cheerful and energetic blues.

In my search for The Blues, at the age of 18, I came across Taj Mahal’s double album ‘Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home’ at the Glorie record store on Ceintuurbaan in Amsterdam. After immersing myself in Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, John Mayall, and others, Taj Mahal made my heart beat faster with his incomparable mix of Blues, Country blues, Delta blues, Cajun, Rock, and Soul. ‘Giant Step’ is the electric part, with Taj Mahal on vocals, harmonica, banjo, and Mississippi national steel-bodied guitar, Jessie Ed Davis on guitar, piano, and organ, Gary Gilmore on bass, and Chuck Blackwell on drums. On ‘De Ole Folks at Home’, the incomparable Taj Mahal (solo) brings traditional and classic acoustic, raw downhome blues like no other. Taj Mahal was born in 1942 as Henry Saint Clair Fredericks in Harlem, New York, U.S. Together with the then 17-year-old Ry Cooder, he was one of the founders of the legendary Rising Sons in 1965. This band did not last long, but it was the start of a long and successful career for Taj and Ry.  Taj is now 81 years old and still performs frequently, has made dozens of albums (I have almost all of them), has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, and has won four. Taj Mahal cannot be pigeonholed and surprises you again and again on every album.

The first time I came in contact with Blues was through my older brother’s LP collection. Among other things, he had John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton. At the time I was about 9 years old. I eventually started playing guitar at 17, with my good friend Klaas van Kuilenburg. There was no Youtube and Spotify yet where you can find everything now if you want to learn to play guitar. I bought the instruction book by Ted Oberg (Livin’ Blues). The barré F chord was a big obstacle. It took weeks before that one succeeded and we could at least play “House Of The Rising Sun.  The next step was figuring out solos. One of the first was the Eric Clapton version of Freddie King’s ‘Hideaway’ that was on the Bluesbreakers LP. Each time the needle of the pickup was reset completely ruined the LP, of course. Later I bought a pickup with a 16-rpm function. Then the solo sounded a lot slower and it was easier to hear what was happening. This way I picked out dozens of solos and licks. One of the first blues LPs I bought myself was “Natural Boogie” by Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers. Not nearly as virtuosic as Clapton, but the rawness and energy of the music came in like a sledgehammer blow! There was no bass player there, just drums and 2 guitars. I especially loved the song “Sadie. It had a kind of hypnotic vibe that really appealed to me. I later found that in the music of Howlin’Wolf, R.L Burnside and Fred McDowell, among others. Often songs with 1 chord that have that same hypnotic, trance-like feel.  I’ve had periods over the years where I listened to or played a certain kind of music, but I always come back to these heroes. Somehow it never sounds dated. Bands of today like Black Keys and My Baby also base themselves on this down-home Blues and prove they can appeal to a large audience. My current Blues duo Richville with Jody van Ooijen on drums is a direct result of my love for this “primal music.

I find it hard to choose, because there are so many masterful albums, but I have special memories of this album, which is why I chose it. First of all, this album was the first album I bought when I studied in America for a year. The album had just come out and I went to Tower records and bought it for about $12 I thought. I still have it and it has since been turned gray for as far as that can go with a CD. Secondly, it has brought me a lot musically and opened my ears, so to speak, in terms of different styles coming together. Robben grew up with blues music, but also toured with Miles Davis in his early years. The beauty on this album, then, is that you hear an authentic blues lick one minute and a fat jazz phrase the next.  The songs are also very diverse and go from soul pop to rock to funk and of course back to blues. Being a guitarist is also a treat, as the guitar sounds on this album are sublime. Robben is known for using his now priceless guitar amp built by Alexander Dumble. You can hear a thick sparkling clean sound, but his signature unctuous drive sound is also abundant. All in all, this album is still an inspiration and always will be for me. Partly because of the special memories of course, but mostly because of the quality of music making.

To choose a favorite LP when you are alone is already very difficult. To do it with 2 people seemed even more difficult at first, but in our case it actually wasn’t too bad. ‘Recorded Live’ by Ten Years After we both had in our record collection when we were youngsters. Although we are both a little less into blues rock now, this album made a big impression at the time. Especially for me (Frank) as a guitarist. Alvin Lee was (and still is) a hero to me. With “I’m Going Home” being the absolute highlight on this album, we both definitely think back to the song “Help Me” with a smile. So soft and fragile in the beginning, but then, like thunderclap that harsh accent in the 2nd verse that had us scaring like scared dogs. Especially when we had headphones on late at night and almost fell asleep. The dynamics Ten Years After applies in many songs is still unprecedented and an inspiration to us. In the early years when Joep and I were in a band together (beginning in 1978), we didn’t play blues. We tried to make our own songs and that was more towards (symphonic) rock. Well, a moderate infusion of that. In retrospect, we both actually don’t understand why we didn’t make Blues at the beginning of our musical journey. We thought Blues music was really cool, but didn’t actually know it was Blues. Only much later did we realize that the songs we both used to like best were actually Blues songs. For a long time we were in a band together, but we also went our separate ways musically. However, we always visited each other as friends. We talked more and more about Blues together and finally in 2007 we got back together musically and started our first blues band (Mojo Hand) and quit the other bands we were in. Now we go to America every few years to dive deep into Blues history and now we have 3 blues bands together (Mojo Hand, Ramblin’ Dog and Reemers & de Greef), which allows us to express our musical passions. In all the bands we play a mix of our own songs and existing songs that we edit ourselves.