Blind Willie Dunn (Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson)

Eddie Lang with Joe Venuti Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson

Although he doesn't get a solo and the song is pretty lame, you can see Eddie Lang in the front right in the first shot of the band (Paul Whiteman's Orchestra). This passed for jazz with white folks back then. It may have been the first color movie ever filmed.

Eddie Lang (born Salvatore Massaro in Philadelphia, 1902) was the man who popularized the guitar in jazz and pop music. Before Lang most jazz bands had banjo players in the rhythm section. Guitar was popular with hillbillies, rural blues and Hawiian musicians, and was often heard in classical and flamenco music, it was not heard in jazz. It was probably for this reason that Eddie Lang never led a band outside of the recording studio in his lifetime. Although Lang recorded in many styles including classical (his main influence was Segovia), pop (especially with Bing Crosby) and various types of ethnic music, it was as a jazz musician that Lang made a name for himself. But Lang also loved blues, and as a session man had played behind Texas Alexander, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and others. In 1928 and 1929 he cut a series of sessions which resulted in five 78's in tandem with blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson (also heard on some of these discs are King Oliver on trumpet, J.C. Johnson on piano) issued under the name of Blind Willie Dunn and his Gin Bottle Four that are among the greatest blues guitar recordings ever waxed. Lonnie Johnson, whose recording career lasted nearly fifty years considered them the highlights of his lifework. The tunes were issued as follows: Two Tone Stomp b/w Have To Change Keys To Play These Blues (Okeh 8637) Guitar Blues b/w Blue Guitars (Okeh 8711), A Handful of Riffs b/w Bullfrog Moan (Okeh 8695), Midnight Call Blues b/w Blue Room (Okeh 8818) and Hot Fingers b/w Deep Minor Rhythm Stomp (Okeh 8743).

Jazz fans don't think much of these sides, and most blues fans never heard of them. It's a shame, because in this age of guitar hero worship gone crazy they remain among the finest recordings ever made. They sure sound good together, it's hard to tell who's who. But they compliment each other as if they'd been playing together for years. Of course, times being what they were, they never performed live, but these sides must have had a following or Okeh wouldn't have called for three sessions. They're quite rare these days, although not really big money records.

They're easy enough to find on re-issue.

Eddie Lang would find high paying work in Paul Whiteman's Orchestra (where he played along side Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbuer and other big name white jazz players of the era), then considered the top jazz dance band in the land (although they are virtually unlistenable today, they were white and therefore Whiteman was able to claim the crown "King Of Jazz" while Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington struggled along to find an audience). Lang also cut some very influential records with violinist Joe Venuti (these sides would be a big influence on Django Rheinhart), and finally worked as Bing Crosby's band leader and musical director. In 1933, at age 31, Lang went for a routine tonsillectomy and died shortly after the operation. Within a a few years of his death virtually every big band had a guitar player and in the late 30's Charlie Christian would come along and take the jazz guitar solo to the next level via amplification.

But as a white bluesman, Lang beat Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and virtually every non-hillbilly guitarist to the punch by decades, and his playing still hasn't been matched.

Goodbye Mother In Law Lounge

Ernie K-Doe, the Emperor Of The World, singing from behind the bar at the Mother In Law Lounge, 1999.

Ernie K-Doe, sans wig, entertains the crowd at the Mother In Law, 1994.

At The Mother In Law, (l. to r.) Michelle K., Me, Ernie K-Doe, Kelly Keller.

K-Doe statue, took his place at social functions after his 2001 passing. Why it needed a wheelchair, I'm not sure.

Ernie K-Doe's shoes, center. 1999.

K-Doe's van, Emperor Of The World.

Antoinette and Ernie's business card. Ernie K-Doe's Mother In Law Lounge, 1500 N. Clairbourne, Ave, New Orleans, is closing, they're selling off everything in the place on July 10th, via silent auction.

The Mother In Law was opened by Ernie K-Doe and his wife Antoinette in 1994, Ernie used to sing their every Monday night until he passed away in 2001. Even in the August heat, Ernie's funeral was one of the greatest second line funeral processions in the history of New Orleans, maybe the last great one, it went from St. Louis Cemetery #2 (where someone donated a spot in their family crypt for Ernie's remains) to the Mother In Law. Ernie's widow, Antoinette K-Doe kept the place going after Ernie's passing, even though the place flooded up to the second floor after Katrina. Unfortunately Antoinette died Mardi Gras day 2009 (Mardi Gras day is hell on bar owners who have been up all the previous night with Lundi Gras parties and after parties, not to mention the madness that follows the Saturday Endymion parade and the parades all day Sunday and Monday night. By Mardi Gras morning every bar worker in town is ready to drop dead. I've always wondered why more bar owners don't drop dead on Mardis Gras. I sure felt like it the last time I worked one. Miss Antoinette, as she was known, had her own Mardi Gras Krewe- the Baby Dolls, reviving a tradition that went back to the Storyville Days.

After Antoinette's death, her daughter Betty Fox tried to keep the place going, but after a car ran through the front door last month (putting Ms. Fox in the hospital), it all got to be too much and she decided to pack it in.

The Mother In Law was one of the coolest bars I've ever been in (and I've been in a lot of bars) and it will be a great loss to the world in general and New Orleans in particular. I spent a lot of hanging out there and my late partner in the Circle Bar, Kelly Keller was very close to Antoinette and Ernie, so we all spent a lot of time commiserating about how tough the bar biz is, especially in New Orleans, where nobody likes to work and nobody wants to pay for anything. With the closing of the Mother In Law goes another piece of a once great town that is basically disintegrating before our eyes. And with it a lifestyle and cultural (and musical) tradition that can never be replaced. I saw it happen in New York, the world I knew and loved just bought up and taken over by corperate greed, and I remember driving home in New Orleans one night, WODT on the radio, thinking, enjoy it now, this place can't last much longer. Two years later Katrina hit and New Orleans never recovered. I want to remember it the way it was before Katrina, I spent a lot of time their from my first trip in '79, even kept an apartment there until 2004, but right now I just can't go back. Too many ghosts, too many memories, I don't want my last look at the place to be a sad one. Here's some photos taken at the Mother In Law over the years, including some of Ernie singing. That's the way I want to remember it.

An aircheck of Ernie K-Doe as a WWOZ dj can be found here.

Addendum July 1st, 2010: The news is that the Mother In Law may not be closing after all. More info as it comes in.

Honky Tonk Women

Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing Behind the Video Camera? Brings back memories of Andrew Oldham's "Would you let your daughter go with Rolling Stone" hype back in '63, no? If you were their mom would you let them near Bill Wyman? Do You Think They Know Dead Flowers? Connection? Or the verse about the sailors in Paris (see Get Your Ya-Yas Out for that....)?

Howlin' Wolf

On Shindig, with the Rolling Stones. The Shindogs (with James Burton) backing Wolf and Hubert Sumlin. 1965.

European TV appearence.

Newport Jazz Festival. Nobody booed Wolf for going electric.

Check from Sam Phillips to Chester Burnett (Howlin' Wolf), in time for Christmas, '51.

My favorite stamp.

Onstage at Silvios, Chicago, early 60's.

June 10 was Howlin' Wolf's centennial. That means 1ooth birthday for you morons out there. So I'm ten days late and two dollars short, as usual. All of Wolf's great Chess and RPM sides (and the un-issued recordings) are in print somewhere in the world today, so there's no excuse not to own them. If you want to know more about Chester Arthur Burnette, I highly recommend James Segrest and Mark Hoffman's Moanin' At Midnight: The Life and Times Of Howlin' Wolf (Pantheon,2004), as well as Don McGlynn's

2003 documentary The Howlin' Wolf Story, which is available on DVD and also turns up on cable TV quite a bit these days. I thought I'd post the above clips and pix as my own personal tribute since Howlin' Wolf was the guy that really turned me on to great music. It was the top clip, when the he appeared on Shindig with my then heroes-- the Rolling Stones sitting worshippfully at his feet that really turned my six year old head inside out. It wasn't until six years later that I found a copy of his Evil (Chess, which was a 70's re-issue of his first album Moanin' At Midnight) in a .99 cent bin, a record that would really change the way I heard music for ever.

By the time I saw Wolf live (1974) he was sick and old, he couldn't get out of his chair and his set was only four songs (about 15 minutes) long, but I'm still glad I went, just to hear him make that sound. It seemed to come from someplace deep inside of him and rumbled out of him like the beginning of an earthquake. It was more than a mere voice, it was a wonder of nature.

For you beginers I suggest you pick up the CD of his first two Chess albums (released on one CD)- Moanin' At Midnight/Howlin' Wolf (aka The Rocking Chair album), then get the two volumes of Bear Family Memphis recordings done at Sun Studio-- Memphis Days Vol. 1 and 2, and then pretty much everything else he did except the London Sessions, This Is Howlin' Wolf's New Album...He Doesn't Like It (aka the "Birdshit album" as Wolf put it) and the stupid "super blues jam" LP's is worth owning.

Radio First Termer: Pirate Radio, Viet Nam, 1970

Dave Rabbit, underground DJ, Radio First Termer, Viet Nam, 1970.

Entertaining the maggots and first termers.

Dave Rabbit, dressed to kill.

Two Vietnamese whores hiding in a tree.

Dave Rabbit: The voice of First Termers and Hard Acid Rock Music, 1970

Musically, this is a bit off the mark from the usual crap I cover on this blog, but I love this tape so much I just had to share it. I don't remember where I first got this tape, I think it might have been sent to me by a listener of my old WFMU radio show. What it is, is an aircheck of a pirate radio station run by a G.I. who called himself Dave Rabbit and his "compadre" Pete, broadcasting at 69 megacycles out of Saigon, evidently right above a massage parlor, aimed at "maggots, grunts, and first termers here in the republic of Viet Nam", Rabbit's mission statement was to bring "the voice of hard acid-rock music" to the U.S. soldiers who were getting picked off by snipers, stepping on land mines, smoking pot, dropping acid and shooting smack. These are large files (both run over 45 minutes, part one is 43.8 MB, part two is 44.9 MB), and the sound quality is shitty, but it's a real hoot to listen to. In between some truly awful "hard acid rock music" (Sugar Loaf, Bloodrock, Cactus, The James Gang, Cream, etc.) Rabbit reads ads for whore houses, give tips to GI's on R&R ("If you're going to the Carousel Club tonight stay way from the big Korean at the door, he's pushing some bad H, I repeat he's pushing some bad H..."), not to mention news reports from the sultry voiced Nygen (have you ever met a Vietnamese person not named Nygen?), tells the listeners that's the acid is kicking in over the opening notes of the Byrds' Eight Miles High, his all around laconic delivery and spaced out witticisms (often taken off of latrine walls) have to be heard to be believed. Since this tape was probably recorded from a foxhole on a cassette deck and is God knows what generation, you'll have to suffer the sound quality and lame tunes, but believe me it's worth it. Radio First Termer is like no other radio broadcast I've ever heard. Rabbit lived through the war, he even had a website for awhile, which has since disappeared, his latest doings had more to do with the current Iraq and Afghan involvement that his glory days in Nam, but perhaps he will reappear. I sure hope he has more vintage airchecks of Radio First Termer, and in better fidelity, as this 90 minute segment is all I've been able to come up with over the years. If you're interested in the Viet Nam war below are some of my favorite books on the subject. Meanwhile, enjoy Radio First Termer (give part two 10 seconds before it kicks in....):

Radio First Termer Part One

Radio First Termer Part Two

Essential Reading:

Michael Herr- Dispatches (Knopf, 1970)

Phil Caputo- A Rumor Of War (Holt, Rhinehart & Wilson, 1977)

Gustav Hasford- The Short-Timers *(Harper & Row, 1979)

Gustav Hasford- The Phantom Blooper (Bantam, 1990) (sequel to The Short-Timers)

Dean Ellis Kohler- Rock'n'Roll Soldier (Harper Collins, 2009)

*The Short-Timers was the source material for Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Maddox Brothers & Rose

Left to Right: Cal, Cliff, Rose, Don, and Fred Maddox: America's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band

Maddox Brothers & Rose circa 1938- Rolled up dungarees and shy smiles.

At the beginning of their career: Fred, Rose and Cal Maddox.

Oddball 4-Star six song, ten inch, 33 1/3rd RPM, pressed on shellac.

4-Star leased this killer to Decca who issued it on 45 in the mid-50's.

Our story today begins in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression where thousands of small farmers, especially those known as sharecroppers (that is, they worked the fields for the property owner in return for a percentage of the crop) were driven from their land by great dust storms and greedy Wall Street bankers (sound familiar?), migrated west with hopes of a new life in California. Meet Charlie and Lulla Maddox of Boas, Alabama, who in desperation, set out west hitchhiking and riding the rails, with their five small children in tow:, Cal (born 1915), Fred (born 1919), Don (born 1922), Rose (born 1925) and Henry (born 1928), their eldest child Cliff, born 1912 would join them later. With the help of fellow travelers (one of whom they crossed paths with was Woody Guthrie) a boxcar eventually deposited them in California's San Joaquin Valley, where they found work as "fruit tramps", following the crop around, picking at three cents a box. The entire family worked the fields following the seasonal harvest. This they did for several years until 1937 when Fred Maddox, who "never could stand to work" but was blessed with a hustler's tongue and could "sell anything to anyone" talked himself onto a morning radio show on KTRB out of Modesto, California. He was given the job on the promise that he could provide a female singer, which Fred assured the radio executives that he not only had a female singer, but his group had in fact "the best female singer", which arguably enough, was true. Gathering up his brothers Cliff on mandolin, Don on fiddle, Cal on guitar, and the 11 going on 12 year old Rose as lead singer (Fred himself acquired a stand up bass that he could hardly play, using it mostly as a drum), the Maddox Brothers & Rose were born as a musical entity. So begins the tale of what would become the wildest, most exuberant hillbilly band in the whole history of music.

The radio show pay was shitty but it spread their name far and wide and allowed them to find live work, performing at road houses, honky tonks and rodeos, often they were paid only in tips, but hell, it beat picking fruit. In 1939 they won a state wide talent contest sponsored by Anacin pain reliever and were proclaimed California's Best Hillbilly Band and were also rewarded with a syndicated radio program that spread their name all over the West Coast and South West.

Unfortunately, three of the four brothers were drafted in World War II, fortunately they all survived, (sadly enough, Cliff who was exempted from the draft because he had rheumatic fever as a child would pass away in 1949 from ongoing complications from the disease). Although they kept going (Rose took over the bass for a bit) they wouldn't fully reassemble until 1946 (after Cliff's death he was replaced by baby brother Henry). With the addition of Roy Nicholas on lead guitar (later longtime star of Merle Haggard's Strangers) and Bud Duncan on steel guitar, by this time they had become seasoned professionals, outfitted in outlandishly spangled duds by N. Turk of Hollywood (Nudie was considered too conservative for their tastes) and had taken to billing themselves as "The World's Most Colorful Hillbilly Band"-- and so they were. The music they made was wild and anarchic, their stage act full of much ad libbed goofing off, bizarre comedy, sound effects and all manner of mania. They sounded like no other group before or since, much of their output was pure rock'n'roll, a decade before most of America had heard of such a thing.

In 1946 they signed with Fred Foster and Don Pierce's independent 4-Star label, the story of which is told in much detail in John Broven's essential book Record Makers and Breakers: Voices Of The Independent Rock'n'Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009). In the five years they recorded for 4-Star, the Maddox Brothers and Rose created a musical canon like no other, in fact, a case could be made for them inventing white rock'n'roll (but not by me, I personally think rock'n'roll was invented by cavemen beating on rocks). In addition to country ballads, folk songs and hymns they waxed such high enery hillbilly exotica and proto-rockabilly as Shimmy Shakin' Daddy, Mean and Wicked Boogie, Texas Guitar Stomp, Water Baby Boogie, Hangover Blues, New Muleskinner Blues, not to mention beating Elvis to Milkcow Blues by five years, and reviving Blind Boy Fuller's Step It Up and Go as a full on, hellbent, guitar stomp.

They were among the first to record tunes by their pals Hank Williams, recording his Move It On Over and Honky Tonkin' (in fact, Hank's final recordings were done in Fred Maddox's living room) and Woody Guthrie whose Philadelphia Lawyer was the closest they ever got to having a hit record. 4-Star would eventually lease some of these sides to Decca, King and all manner of weird budget labels, which is where I discovered them in the .99 cent bin as a teenager.

In 1949 the Maddox Brothers & Rose were finally invited to appear on the Grand Ole Opry.

After humpin' it all the way to Nashville in their string of road weary Cadillacs, Fred had an argument with the Opry's management over who would announce the songs (Fred usually did it, the Opry wanted Rose), Fred refused to budge and they packed up and left town without ever playing the Opry. They never would, and they still aren't in the Country Music Hall Of Fame as a result. They did however appear on the Louisiana Hayride, where Hank Williams had been banished after the Opry dismissed him for acting like himself.

Through it all the Maddox Brothers & Rose kept up their radio appearances, moving from Modesto to Hollywood then finally to Bakersfield, California. They appeared on KTRB, KFBK,

KFWB (Hollywood), and KGDM (Stockton), making their sponsor-- Regal Pale Beer very happy. From some dodgy sounding transcriptions here is some live radio broadcast material-- Step It Up & Go, Water Baby Boogie, Tennesse Ernie Ford's Shotgun Boogie, Jack Guthrie's Okie Boogie, Jimmie Rodgers' Muleskinner Blues, the old classic My Bucket's Got A Hole In It and their theme song-- I Want To Live and Love. You sure don't hear folks having that much fun on the radio these days.

In 1951 the big time came calling in the guise of Columbia Records (whose president Mitch Miller hated rock'n'roll so much he said he'd never sign a rock'n'roll act although Ronnie Self somehow slipped through). Columbia signed Maddox Brothers & Rose as a group and also Rose Maddox as a solo artist. Their Columbia sides are only slightly less demented than their 4-Star output, highlights of these years (1951-56) are rockers like A Short Life and It's Trouble,

Ugly & Slouchy, a cover of Mickey & Sylvia's Love Is Strange, the wonderful South ("Roy Nicholas play that thang!"), and perhaps their masterpiece, and prophetic swansong-- The Death Of Rock'n'Roll (actually a cover of Ray Charles' I Got A Woman) recorded the year of Elvis' breakthrough-- 1956. The best of Rose's solo output at Columbia to my ears is her version of Ruth Brown's Wild Wild Young Men.

In 1956, after twenty years on the road and ten years of recording without a major hit the Maddox Brothers & Rose called it quits. Fred bought a nightclub, Don went into cattle ranching and Cal stayed with Rose whose solo career lasted until her death in 1998. Ken Nelson signed her to Capitol in the late 50's (to hear one of her great duets with Buck Owens check out my Buck posting from last month), and her first Capitol LP-- The One Rose features many remakes of material originally recorded with her brothers and is her best solo LP in my opinion.

The Maddox Brothers & Rose were probably too extreme for their time, or our time for that matter. Their sound was that of white hot guitars, sawing fiddle and galloping slap bass driving Rose's voice which was a fiery instrument full of yelps and growls, so much so that she makes Patsy Cline sound like so much old dishwater. With her brothers braying like mules, screaming, cackling, and whooping in the background, these records were not exactly radio friendly, especially considering they were released at a time that Nashville was adding strings and the Anita Kerr singers on every record they could. That's okay, they remain among the greatest country records ever released, and in a day and age when fat head Garth Brooks and his goofy head set passes as country music, everyone should hear these sides. There's nothing else that compares. Don Maddox is the only remaining member of the group, the aforementioned Cliff passed in 1949, Cal went in '68, Henry in '74, Fred died in '92 and Rose passed in 1998, she was making great music right up until her final months. Too bad I couldn't find any live footage to go along with this post, if anyone knows of any, please let me know, I'd love to add some. If you're into that sort of thing Fred Maddox's bass is at Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen's Experience Project Museum in Seattle with a sign on it that says something to the effect that the first note of rock'n'roll might have been played on the thing.

ESSENTIAL MADDOX BROTHERS & ROSE: Arhoolie has two CD's worth of 4-Star material and another CD of radio airchecks available, your life is incomplete without them. Bear Family has re-isssued the Columbia sides as well as Rose's solo Columbia material. I'm not sure if Rose's One Rose Capitol LP ever made it to CD but it's one to keep an eye peeled for. If ever a group was begging to compiled in a box set it is the Maddox Brothers & Rose. Write Bear Family and demand one.

My New Favorite Blog- Another Nickel In The Machine

Lord Haw Haw: British Nazi, hung in 1946

Nowhere in the western world are regular folks treated quite so shabbily by the "system" as in the U.K.. No air conditioning on the tube, everything is expensive and cheaply made, high rents, etc. No wonder they all get drunk and beat the shit out of each other every night at closing time. And with the new Torry led colaliton I would imagine things are going to get worse within weeks. That said, I love London, just like I love other cities like New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, New Orleans, Rome, and Paris. It's one of my favorite places in the world, and I've never had less than a great time there. Recently, I stumbled onto this London-centric blog: Another Nickel In The Machine and I must say, it's one of the finest ways to waste your time on the Internet you'll ever find. From the Stones' in prison to the execution of Lord Haw-Haw, the author, whose name seems to be only "London Is My Beat" provides incredibly well researched and well written posts that are better than anything you'll find in any modern magazine. You can spend hours reading and looking at video and photos, many quite rare, from the real dirt on the young Bowie to 50's dyke bars to Colin Wilson, it's a great read. Give it a click.

Cuban Rebel Girls 1959 with Errol Flynn

Clip from Flynn's last film-- Cuban Rebel Girls.

Errol Flynn (born June 20, 1909 in Tasmania) may have been one of Hollywood's favorite leading men in the 30's and 40's but by the fifties he was washed up, living out of the U.S. as a tax exile having lost most of his money in three expensive trumped up trials (for having sex with jail bait), several divorces and plain old high living. At the time he basically lived on his boat, at one point in his final years washing up in Cuba, Flynn was taken with Castro's revolution and wrote and starred in this hard to find classic-- Cuban Rebel Girls. Flynn plays a correspondent reporting on the revolution who ends up helping Castro and his rebels. It's kind of a low budget, nutso version of Graham Greene's The Quiet American. It would be Flynn's last film. Errol Flynn would die in October of '59, from a heart attack, his body weakened from years of hard drinking (he actually died in the Vancouver, B.C. apartment of Glen Gould's uncle, or so the story goes). I assume you've all read his incredible autobiography My Wicked Wicked Way (latest edition Cooper Press, 2003), if not, you need to. Once recent bio of Flynn claimed he had Nazi sympathies during WWII, but Cuban Rebel Girls which remains the only political statement of his life seems to gives us a glimpse of where his true feelings were. By the way, I'm still on vacation.

Addendum: We're leaving Lake Como for Milano today, anyone know of any good used record shops or flea markets in Milano?

Addendum #2: Flynn's son Sean Flynn (born May 31, 1941) was a celebrated photojournalist who disappeared in Cambodia on April 6, 1970 (he was legally declared dead in 1984) while covering the Viet Nam war. One theory has it that he was taken prisoner by Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge guerrillas in the jungle of eastern Cambodia. He was last seen on a motorcycle along with fellow journalist Dana Stone. If so, his final days were probably quite grim. Sean Flynn is one of the main characters in Michael Herr's classic Viet Nam war novel Dispatches (Knopf, 1978). Sean Flynn in real life was as dashing a character as the one his father played in the movies. Herr's book was one of the main inspirations for Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket (Herr wrote the voice over dialogue and several scenes from the movie are right out of the book). Last March some human remains that may have been Sean Flynn were discovered in a mass grave Cambodia.

Re-Post: William S. Burroughs- Junky

William S. Burroughs engages in a different type of shooting up. William S. Burroughs with martini and unknown female friend.

Second US Paperback edition, first UK paperback.

Autograph from the last time I saw him in Lawrence, Kansas, '96.

I'm re-posting William S. Burroughs reading an abridged version of Junky (aka Junkie). As you may have noticed, all links before December 2009 have expired, but I'll be occasionally re-upping some of the rarer things that are not available any other way. To see what I originally had to say about Burroughs and Junky from my September 2009 posting click here. I'm still

on vacation, so if I don't answer e-mails, postings, phone calls, the doorbell, Facebook notifications, etc. please be patient, or better yet, give up. I'll probably only disappoint you anyway. Here it is in four rather lengthy (45 minutes plus) segments: Junky pt. 1, Junky pt. 2,

Junky pt. 3, Junky pt. 4. Don't you wish he would have tape himself reading from The Wild Boys?

Slim Gaillard

I'm taking a bit of a break from this blog, although I have a couple of short ones ready to post while I'm away. I'll be in Italy until around June 15th, but I leave you with this amazing clip of Slim Gaillard sent in by Eddie Gorodetsky. The guy presenting it is pretty goofy, but I guess he means well, after all, he went to all the trouble of sharing his rare 16 mm footage with the world. So thanks buddy. And thanks Eddie G.

I remember seeing Slim Gaillard in a tiny club in the west Village in the late 70's, the joint was almost empty, so we practically had a private show, we sat right in front of him and he joked and goofed with us all through his set. Which was incredible, especially when he played the piano with his hands upside down. Hell, just watching him ask the waitress for a drink, in his own peculiar dialect (aroonie) was more entertaining than most people's entire careers.

I'll be back around the middle of the month with plenty to write about. Here's more Slim Gaillard:

With Slam Stewart, when they were Slim & Slam.

On the guitar.