Bobby "Blue" Bland

Bobby "Blue" Bland rockin' the chitlin' circuit.

Pardon the fuzzy scan, this one sure sounds good on 78 rpm.

Singing live on Memphis' WDIA, the first all black station in America.

Left to Right: Little Junior Parker, Elvis Presley, Bobby Blue Bland, 1956.

Bobby "Blue" Bland (born Robert Calvin Brooks, in Rosemark, Tennessee, 1930) has been for over half a century "The King Of The Chitlin' Circuit", and remains so. His voice is all shot to hell, and he can no longer stand up onstage, but he's still out there on the road, and although he gets plenty of good bookings at places like House Of Blues, casinos and festivals, a good portion of his gigs are still southern "Chitlin' Circuit" clubs where his loyal audience is full of large boned ladies of color, and every table has a bottle of Crown Royal (served in a blue velour bag) on it. He is of the most influential rhythm and blues singers of all time, the source of such standards as Turn On Your Lovelight, Further On Up The Road and I Pity The Fool and had a string of R&B hits that stretched over forty years, he was still making the R&B charts regularly with his Malaco releases into the early 1990's. His career is too long and he has made too many good records to cover in one posting (although I'd recommend to anyone single out there, if you don't own a copy of his Two Steps From The Blues LP, get one, I used to keep it along with Sam Cooke's Night Beat next to my stereo as my "guaranteed to get you laid" records. If you're making out and Two Steps From The Blues doesn't close the deal, you're hopeless).

No, today I shall discuss the discs which emanated from handful of sessions cut between 1955 and 1957 with wild man Roy Gaines or the immensely talented Clarence Hollimon on guitar, for these are his rawest, and to my mind, best, most explosive sides.

In a coconut shell, Bland's family moved to Memphis when he was seventeen. He began hanging around on Beale Street and fell in with a loose group of musicians who wore shiny suits and are often referred to as the Beale Streeters, although they never used that name themselves,-- Johnny Ace, B.B. King, Rosco Gordon, Earl Forrest and Little Junior Parker. He cut his first disc in 1951 fronting a band with Ike Turner on piano and Matt "Guitar" Murphy on, guess, right, the guitar. "I'll Love You Til The Day Die" was released on the b-side of the Chess version of Rosco Gordon's Booted (Booted, in an alternate take was also released by Modern's RPM subsidiary, although Bland wasn't on the flip of that version). He recorded tunes, including a duet with Little Junior Parker for Chess and RPM under the tutelage of Ike Turner before signing with Memphis DJ James Mattis' Duke label who released I.O.U. Blues b/w Lovin' Blues (on which B.B. King played guitar) in '52 and then he was promptly drafted into the U.S. Army. Bland was stationed in Texas and while in the Army did some gigs around Houston and also recorded some sides for Duke including Army Blues b/w No Blow, No Show (Duke 115). When he was discharged in 1955, Duke Records, along with Bland's contract, had been sold to Don Robey, the Houston based, black-Jewish gangster who ran the powerhouse R&B and gospel Peacock label and a snazzy sepia nightclub called the Bronze Peacock. Robey wasted no time in getting Bland in the studio and in February 1955 in Houston, Bland was coupled with producer/arranger Joe Scott and band leader Bill Harvey whose killer group included Connie Mack Booker on piano and Roy Gaines on guitar, for a session that produced his most incendiary disc-- It's My Life Baby b/w Time Out (Duke 141), along with two outtakes-- Honey Bee and Lost Lover Blues that were as good as anything he'd ever record. All four songs feature the voluminous guitar of Roy Gaines (who later cut such classics as Skippy Is A Sissy for RCA and Loud Mouth Lucy for Chart). Having already blogged about Guitar Slim, Mickey Baker, Wild Jimmy Spruill, Pete "Guitar" Lewis and Lafayette "The Thing" Thomas, et al, I think I am running out of verbs to describe wild, distorted, blues based guitar work outs. Brutal. Have I over used that one yet? Gaines' solos on the above sides are truly brutal. If the solo on It's My Life Baby doesn't pin your ears back, there may be something wrong with your ears.

Bland was becoming a popular club draw and soon teamed up with Little Junior Parker and together they went out on the road as the Blues Consolidated tour. Roy Gaines was soon hired away by Chuck Willis who made him his band leader and he was replaced by the equally unique and talented Clarence Hollimon, then still a teenager. Holliman would be featured on Bland's next set of recordings-- I Woke Up Screaming (Duke 146, and from the same session but left in the vault A Million Miles From Nowhere), You've Got Bad Intentions Baby b/w I Can't Put You Down Baby (Duke 153), I Smell Trouble b/w I Don't Want No Woman (Duke 167) and Farther Up The Road b/w Sometime Tomorrow (Duke 170). The latter, released in 1957, would go to #1 R&B and kick off the string of R&B hits that would stretch over the coming decades. His next two records-- Bobby's Blues b/w Teach Me (How To Love You) (Duke 182) and Loan Me A Helping Hand b/w You Got Me (Where You Want Me) (Duke 185) were not hits, but are excellent none the less. We end our discussion with a four song session from 1958 that produced his next hit-- the wailing, ultra-dramatic Little Boy Blue b/w Last Night (Duke 196) and You Did Me Wrong b/w I Lost Sight Of The World (Duke 300). The version of I Lost Sight Of The World posted here is missing the flute overdub heard on the original disc, I hope you don't mind. As Buddy Rich once said (and not to Ian Anderson)-- "there's no sound in flutes". Little Boy Blue, a masterful vocal performance by Bland, would go top ten R&B in October of 1958. These sides all prominently feature the ferocious, nearly out of control guitar playing of young Clarence Hollimon. How he managed to remain such an obscure figure in the ensuing years is a mystery to me. But soon, as Bland's music changed there would be little room for Hollimon's extreme tendencies, and the sound of a distorted guitar would pretty much disappear from Bland's records, replaced by more sophisticated horn charts and often saxophone solos. From 1959 on, Bland's sides would become smoother and more urbane, a formula that proved a winning one for in addition to dozens of hit singles Bland produced a string of classic albums cut with producer Joe Scott (or sometimes our old pal Zephyr Andre Williams)-- the aforementioned Two Steps From The Blues (1961), Here's The Man (1962), Call On Me (1963), Ain't Nothin' You Can Do (1964), and The Soul Of The Man (1965) that presented Bland as a polished, mature, worldly, uptown blues singer. While I'm talking albums, Bland's first-- Blues Consolidated (1959) which features one side of early Bland hits and another side of Little Junior Parker's Duke classics is one of the greatest albums ever made. It was also one of the first blues LP's ever released and became highly influential with younger musicians, nearly every song on it would become a blues band standard.

Bobby "Blue" Bland would tour the world, working 300 days a year or more for the rest of his life (although these days it's down to around half that), as well as all of the achievements mentioned in the first paragraph. While Bland carried on, Clarence Hollimon left Bland's group in '59 and Bland would, for a time, share a band with Little Junior Parker as part of the Blues Consolidated road show, so Hollimon's replacement was Pat "I"m Gonna Murder My Baby" Hare for a couple of years. Clarence Hollimon would resurface in the late 1980's and form an act with his wife-- Carol Fran, the singer/pianist who had cut a string of fine sides for Excello in the early sixties. Too bad they recorded for Black Top. I've made my thoughts on Black Top's production values in my Robert Ward posting last year, I won't go into it again, suffice to say Hollimon was still playing well, but he was recorded badly. He passed away in 2000. The best examples of his guitar prowess remain Bobby Blue Bland's early Duke sides. No home should be without them.

Lafayette "The Thing" Thomas

The Thing demonstrates how to keep white shoes clean while playing. Jerhl was his middle name, but why did they call him "The Thing"? Killer 1957 instrumental. The Thing gets top billing on this 1955 b-side. Lafayette "The Thing" Thomas was a guitarist who sure knew how to liven up a record. His style has been described as "incendiary", as good an adjective to describe his playing as any I could think up. All but forgotten today, he appeared on dozens of records in the fifties and sixties, most prominently those of Jimmy McCracklin & his Blues Blasters whom he spent fifteen years with, as well as the best releases on the Oakland, California based Irma label, a handful of solo releases, and a smattering of other sides scattered over a bewildering variety of indie labels. There's not a whole helluva lot of information on Lafayette Thomas. He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on June 13, 1928 (a Gemini, like me), there's a nineteen year gap before our next sighting of the one who would be called, for reasons that seem lost to time, The Thing. In 1948 he was living in San Francisco. He started out playing a steel guitar, he saved up for his first regular electric guitar by working at the American Can Company. He began his career he gigging around the Bay Area with Al Simmons, Little Bob Young, and Bob Geddins' Cavaliers. His first recordings were with Geddins' and with R&B shouter Jimmy Wilson for the tiny Cave Tone label, the first of many labels Bob Geddins would own. These 78's are so rare I've never heard them, but you can look at them, as some candidate for canonization has seen fit to devote a page of cyberspace to an illustrated discography of our subject de jour. Somehow, The Thing shows up in Memphis in 1951, were he recorded his first solo record for producer Sam Phillips, who leased the sides to Chess in Chicago. Sam's Drag b/w Baby Take A Chance With Me were released under the name L.J. Thomas and his Louisiana Playboys on Chess in '52. The a-side was a wonderfully primitive guitar instrumental with plenty of the speaker blowing distortion that Sam Phillips loved so much.The flip was a vocal blues, in fact it still is. Try finding an original copy today. Soon he was back in the Bay Area, working at a joint on Filmore Street called the House Of Joy where he caught the ear of piano pounding rocker Jimmy McCracklin, whose band the Blues Blasters he joined in 1951. With McCracklin he would record for Swing Time, Modern, Peacock, Irma, Art-Tone, Checker and Mercury, producing more good records than any sane person can count. Some highlights of his early years with McCracklin include Blues Blaster Boogie (Peacock), Blues Blaster Shuffle (Modern), Josephine (Modern) , Beer Tavern (Irma), She's Gone (Peacock), The Swinging Thing (Peacock) and You're The One (Irma). He also recorded solo sides, the next, which appeared the ridiculously obscure Trilyte label was a brilliant instrumental called The Thing b/w Weekly Blues in 1955. Another appeared in 1957 on Bob Geddins' Jumping label -- Cockroach Run, a killer guitar romp that was so low budget it didn't even have a b-side (a goofy comedy break in called The Trial was used as the flip). Don Robey's Peacock label in Houston recorded him as a leader after a McCracklin session with the blazing Jumpin' In The Heart Of Town and Standing In The Doorway Crying but these, probably his finest solo recordings were left in the vault to rot until the U.K. Ace label salvaged them and released them in 1987 on the LP Bay Area Blues Blasters (Ace 224) which featured a photo of The Thing himself wielding a Stratocaster as if it were a battle axe. In these years he played lots of sessions in the Bay Area, working for producers Bob Geddins (Art Tone, Irma, Big Town, Oak City, and others) or Ollie Hunt (Trilyte, Olliet, Oliver and Scotty's Radio). Hunt paid him $128 a week at a time when session union scale was $44.25 for a four hour session. We can assume that not many people bought these records as they're rare as hell. Point in question, this rockin' monster by Texan, Juke Boy Bonner (mis-spelled Barner on the label)-- Rock With Me Baby b/w Well Baby (Irma), one of the greatest rockin' blues sides ever recorded, Thomas sounds like his guitar has barbed wire strings. Collector Dick Blackburn says that less than ten copies are known to have survived*. Some of the best of Lafayette Thomas' playing can be heard on these mid-50's recordings like Jimmy Wilson's Big Town recording like Oh Red and Tell Me on which he solos. He also appears up on this classic by bad ass Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thorton-- Big Mama's Comin' b/w Don't Talk Back (Irma). Meanwhile, Jimmy McCracklin finally hit paydirt with the smash hit-- The Walk on Chess subsidiary Checker in 1957 which featured Thomas' classic guitar lick. McCracklin cut a handful of rockin' singles and an LP for Checker (in fact, the Japanese re-issue of the LP adds the words "featuring Lafayette Thomas" to the cover) in 1957-58. My favorites are Everybody Rock b/w Get Tough, and this instrumental LP track Trottin'. Checker also recorded Lafayette solo on this great track which remained in the vault until the 1980's when it showed up on the aforementioned Japanese album-- Claim On You. In '58 McCracklin moved to Mercury Records, recording another batch of excellent singles in the same mold as The Walk, Georgia Slop being the best of the batch. Although no discography credits Thomas on the McCracklin Mercury sides, anyone with ears can hear it is him. He seems to have left McCracklin's band somewhere around this time. McCracklin would go on to have hits on Geddins' Art Tone (including Just Got To Know a #2 R&B in '61) and Imperial (Think, #7 R&B in '65) and release over thirty albums and hundreds of singles spread out over dozens of labels. In fact, he's still at it. Around '59 or '60 Lafayette Thomas moved to New York City briefly, working with rockin' pianist Sam Price he cut one excellent single for Savoy-- Lafayette's A Comin' b/w Please Come Back, he also played on two Prestige LP's with Little Brother Montgomery, played in Memphis Slim's band for awhile then returned to the Bay Area for good. By the mid-sixties work was getting scarce and he took various jobs outside of music, including working in a factory assembling hoses. He was signed by Liberty subsidiary World Pacific and cut some sides with blues pedal steel player L.C. Robinson in '68, he can be heard on the Arhoolie LP Oakland Blues, his final job was backing up Sugar Pie DeSanto whose 1972 single Hello San Francisco was his last recording. At this point music was a sideline for Lafayette Thomas. In the early 70's he made some blues festival appearances and then 1977, only 48 years old, he dropped dead of a heart attack. Today he's mostly forgotten except for me, Jimmy McCracklin and the guy with illustrated discography web page. So what? Who cares? That was fifty years ago! Why do I keep digging out these obscure names and writing this swill? I asked myself these questions while I'm logging the tunes onto this page for anyone who wants to hear (or download) 'em. I mean, I already have the records, I can hear 'em whenever I want. I guess I'm still amazed at how many incredible, unique characters were out there that could channel their personal idiosyncrasies through rock'n'roll. It sometimes astounds me how many great records there are to hear. Like a bottomless well of great, wild records that only a handful of people have heard. Sadly, the well seems to have dried up sometime around the mid-sixties. In a way, there's probably more good guitar players around today as ever, but good as in technically proficient, the wrong kind of good, because unfortunately they all sound the same to these ears. I guess back before the corporate takeover of the music biz, the guys who ran these little labels were always looking for something new, something unique. Unique was Sam Phillips', the first to record Lafayette Thomas solo, mantra. Nowadays the knuckleheads in charge want everything to sound the same. Same drum beat--- just pick a setting on the machine (there's probably one built into your computer, there's one on mine), even the Rolling Stones do it, sample the drums that is, but it's the same with guitar players, a stage full of effects pedals don't help, it still sounds like the same shit. But these old guys, they all sounded different. Lafayette Thomas didn't sound anything like Ike Turner who didn't sound anything like Johnny Guitar Watson who didn't sound anything like Link Wray who didn't sound like Lowman Pauling....you get the picture. You hear one of these guys, none of 'em were technically great players, some of 'em can hardly play, and some of the best played out of tune (i.e. Chuck Berry) but you can recognize their sound in a second, it was them, their whole personality, all the bullshit in their lives, channeled through six strings and fed into a broken down amplifier. I guess that's the so called point of all this. And that's what I like about driving myself crazy trying to find every record Lafayette Thomas played a guitar solo on. *The quote from Dick Blackburn about the rariety of the Juke Boy Barner Irma 45 comes from Angel Baby's radio show Lost In Paradise, which Blackburn appears on monthly. Angel Baby broadcasts live every Monday night at 7:30 PM PST and can be heard streaming or on podcast. If you want to hear some really rare and great records give a listen.

Roy Buchanan- The Oily Years

Long before he became king of the blues bar bores, Roy Buchanan was actually a great rock'n'roll guitar player. His best recordings unfortunately are spread out over a handful of obscure 45's on small labels, coast to coast. By the time he'd made a name for himself the fire had pretty much gone out of his playing, and while he was always a great technician, he simply was not a much of a band leader, so his LP's are dreadfully dull affairs. Today, however, we will give a listen to those early sides, and these records I believe more than justify his reputation as one of the all time greats. Buchanan was born in Ozark, Arkansas, September 23, 1939, and raised in Pixley, California which is in the Central Valley, south of Fresno. I think the Joads end up there at the end of Grapes of Wrath. His father was a Pentecostal preacher. Roy Nicholas, the country guitar great, star of the best Maddox Brothers & Rose 4-Star recordings and later Merle Haggard's band lived ten miles away and was an early influence. Another influence was Jimmy Nolen of the Johnny Otis Show who Buchanan claims to have met at age 15, more likely he saw him on Otis' TV Show (Buchanan was known for, lets call it, stretching the truth). He would site Nolen's Federal recording of After Hours as his favorite record through out his life. Roy Buchanan left home as a teenager and in 1958 he hooked up with Dale Hawkins' band in Tulsa, traveling with them to Shreveport, Louisiana, home of the Louisiana Hayride radio show (where Elvis started) and a hotbed of guitar playing talent-- James Burton, Scotty Moore, Carl Adams, and dozens of other six string hotshits passed through Shreveport where Dale Hawkins and his brother Jerry were both based, Buchanan cut his some of his earliest sides with the Hawkins brothers. It's hard to figure out what order his earliest sides appeared, but in 1958 he may have recorded with Alis Lesley on Era, a moot point since I don't have that particular record. He does appear on Jerry Hawkins' rockabilly classic Swing Daddy Swing on Ebb (one of his best solos ever), as well appearing on several Dale Hawkins Checker 45's, the best, guitar playing-wise being his rendition of My Babe (here's an alternate take ), I Want To Love You, and Liza Jane. While touring with Dale Hawkins he found time for some session work and can be heard on two excellent rockabilly singles on Imperial from that same year-- Al Jones' Loretta (written by Merle Kilgore who penned Ring Of Fire) and Bobby Jay's So Lonely, a nice Gene Vincent sounding rocker. Meanwhile, back at the Hayride, Buchanan, following in James Burton's footsteps moved from Dale Hawkins' band to Bob Luman's outfit, recording with four songs with Luman issued by Warner Brothers in 1959, the most interesting of these discs is My Baby Walks All Over Me. Rockabilly is all about guitar playing, and especially on the Dale Hawkins sides Buchanan is really in his element. Dale was (and is) a great band leader, and he knew how to get the best of of his guitarists. With the Hawkins band, young Roy Buchanan was touring constantly. He finally left Dale in Toronto and joined his cousin Ronnie Hawkins' Hawks briefly around 1960, his only recording with them however was on bass. He soon settled in the greater Washington D.C./Maryland/Virginia area where he would spend the rest of his life. There was plenty of work for a guitar player, mostly in rough biker and cowboy joints (remember this is the time and place where Link Wray & the Rayman ruled the roost), and Buchanan soon made a name for himself as far north as Philadelphia where he started doing session work. It's these Phili recordings that I'd call Buchanan's best. Again, it's almost impossible to figure out the exact order these discs were released but the first record under his own name was After Hours b/w Whiskers (Bomarc) in 1961. I've already blogged about the a-side (see Feb. 6 entry), the b-side (actually a retitled version of Johnny Heartsman's Johnnie's House Party) is just as great, capturing Buchanan in top form, take a listen and and ask has a white guy ever bent strings so soulfully? Later that same year came Mule Train Stomp b/w Pretty Please (Swan). The a-side is an instrumental workout on the old Frankie Laine number Mule Train with Buchanan's Telecaster riding over a galloping beat and whip cracks, alternating between making his Tele sting at the high end and a rumbling, distorted groove on the low strings, he throws in his best guitar tricks, like using the volume control knob for wah wah effect and overdriving his amp for distortion. Many of the sounds that would become common place by the late 60's through the use of pedals and boxes, Buchanan was mastering in the early 60's, but doing it with his hands. He spent years perfecting these signature motifs and they mark his style. Pretty Please is a variation on the Peter Gunn riff which he'd return to at various times over the years, although I think this is his best version. I love the way he bends the strings just before the stops and just lets them ring, he really knew when not to play. As he works his way up the neck with each chorus his playing gets more ominous, more dramatic. He'd never make a better record. Buchanan would end 1961 on a high note appearing on Cody Brennen and the Temptations (no, not the Motown Temptations) Ruby Baby b/w Am I The One. Buchanan, playing with his amp turned up for maximum distortion is the star of the disc, he just about overpowers the singer with his brutal sound. His solo is simply monstrous, listen to how it ends, did he just slam his guitar into the amp? The only hit single of Buchanan's career came in 1962 where he appears on Bobby Gregg and Friends' The Jam pt.1 b/w The Jam pt. 2 (Cotton). For the record, Buchanan said of drummer Bobby Gregg "He was no friend of mine". This crazed instrumental workout went top forty pop and R&B and was such a huge hit in the North East they were drawing thousands of fans a night. In typical, anti-social fashion Buchanan walked out on Gregg before a gig with 8,000 kids screaming for the band. The follow up-- Potato Peeler b/w Sweet Georgia Brown (Cotton) finds Buchanan chickin' pickin' and using the volume knob to great effect. Too bad it fades as he begins his second solo. The Secrets' Twin Exhaust b/w Hot Toddy (Swan) came out in '62 is basically an excuse for Buchanan to wail, which does in top form. Extra points for dumbest drum solo ever recorded. I love the way it seems to modulate into a completely different song halfway through. The same year he did session work with Swan appearing on Freddie Cannon's Teen Queen of The Week and Danny and the Juniors' Doin' The Continental Walk. I've never heard the latter, and Freddie Cannon (who owns his Swan catalog) is against downloading, so I'll respect his wishes. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced a four song session in '63 for Bob Moore and the Temps' which feature Roy's guitar heavily -- Mary Lou b/w The Shuffle (ABC-Paramount) and Trophy Run b/w Braggin' (Daisy). These are killer sides. Mary Lou is the Young Jessie/Ronnie Hawkins classic and Buchanan is all over it, playing like a maniac. The second single is an instrumental, and it would be Buchanan's last truly great disc. He's reach the peak of his style here. Roy claimed Leiber and Stoller recorded other material with him including another version of After Hours, but if they did, none of it was ever issued. In 1962 Buchanan started playing with a two bit country singer named Danny Denver, appearing on his record Image Of Love on Go Go (later leased to Chancellor), not much of a record, but with Denver, Buchanan would find a steady job that lasted on and off for the next seven years. He'd appear on many of Denver's self released 45's and LP's,although the only good tracks to emerge from this union that I've ever heard are this 1966 waxing of Let's Twist Again, worth hearing only for Buchanan's out of control solo, and a version of Peter Gunn recorded live with Denver's band the Soundmasters that same year. There are a few more spotty recordings from the mid-sixties: the British Walkers' I Found You on Try was an attempt to sound like the Beatles, he may be playing on on a record by the Hi-Boys on Unicom called They Say, but I've never heard it, he also played harmonica on two rare Link Wray singles-- Rumble '68 (Heavy) and Rumble '69 (Mr. G), but let's face it, Rumble don't need no harmonica. Mostly he stepped out of the spotlight, only in his mid-twenties he was already embittered by lack of success, and found a regular gig backing Danny Denver, playing country bars, far from the limelight. With the introduction of wah wah pedals, fuzztones, etc. he felt lost, tricks he'd spent years learning to do were now available for a small price at your local guitar shop. The emergence of Jimi Hendrix in '67 must have shook him because he told an interviewer later: "when you play at that volume the amps and guitar plays you, I like to use the smallest amp possible, it gives you maximum control". Roy was feeling the heat, and competing was against his reclusive nature, he would shun the limelight for the rest of his life. Sometimes he appeared with his own band-- Roy Buchanan and the Poor Boys but mostly he backed up Danny Denver until a Rolling Stone magazine article in 1969 proclaimed him "the greatest guitar player alive you never heard of" which led a path of rock stars to the crappy clubs Denver was playing to herald Buchanan's talent. He claims the Rolling Stones asked him to replace Brian Jones but he turned them down because he didn't want to learn their repertoire. This is most likely bullshit. Still, players like George Harrison and Jeff Beck sung him praises and soon a PBS documentary brought him to fame's doorstep, kicking and screaming. He was signed by Polydor and cut a series of boring ass records. He retired and came back several times, the last on Alligator Records in the late 80's. Unfortunately the fire had gone out. Unlike our previous subject, Charlie Christian, given the freedom to stretch out, Buchanan had become a bore. Under the tight restraints of the three minute 45, and with a strong band leader like Dale Hawkins or producers like Leiber and Stoller, he was great, but as heard on his LP's, twenty minute solos on standards like Green Onions were duller than dishwater. He became hugely popular in an era that worshipped "chops" and "tasty riffs", even selling out Carnegie Hall at one point. His was praised in print by critics and guitar players everywhere, toured the world, had his own signature model guitar marketed by Fender, and was doing quite well despite his inability to make an interesting album. Each time he reached a commercial peak however, he'd bore audiences to tears and end up back on the Maryland/Virginia/D.C. bar circuit, but even there the competition was nipping at his heals. His friend and student Danny Gatton had become his main competitor, and made records that were much more interesting than Buchanan's. He was a depressed man in his final years. On August 14, 1988 he was arrested in Fairfax, Virginia for public intoxication, and that night was found hanging in his cell, a suicide according to the police (murdered by the police according to some of his friends). Sad fuckin' story, no? But not unique. There's a million tragic stories in rock'n'roll: Lafayette "The Thing " Thomas, who made Jimmy McCracklin's The Walk a hit ended life working as a hose fitter, Pete "Guitar" Lewis of the Johnny Otis Show died a homeless wino, Kenny Paulson, star of Freddie Cannon's Tallahassee Lassie and Buzz Buzz A Diddle It (and one time Dale Hawkins side man) was almost murdered in prison, and died of an overdose, utterly forgotten, in 1972, and oddly enough, Buchanan's one time pal and student Danny Gatton, who would commit suicide, shooting himself in his garage, Robert Quine, committed suicide in 2004 had not recorded commercially in four years at the time of his death. Buchanan did better for himself than any of those guys. Hell, he made a living at music, which is more than most musicians do. In 1989 the U.K. Krazy Kat label released an LP Roy Buchanan: The Early Years, I'm not sure if it ever made it to CD but it had fourteen of the above tracks and is well worth looking for. As far as his Polydor and Alligator output, I find them unlistenable and recommend them only for students and collectors.

Friday's 5 45's -- Guitar Slingers (and big dick swingers...)

Okay, I'll take you commenter's suggestion and try and make this a weekly feature. Five 45's. Here's this week's stack. Since I'm a lazy shit, this week I just leaned over, from the reproduction of the couch that Sigmund Freud had in his own office, if I lay backwards on the one in my own office I find myself at eye level directly in front of the instrumental section of the 45 shelves. Easy enough. I love rock'n'roll instrumentals, especially guitar instrumentals. For seventeen years I opened my radio show with five instrumentals (take a listen here). I didn't exactly grab these randomly, I wanted to give you some discs that hadn't been re-issued, at least not on CD as far as I  know, and by guys who you might've heard of, if it not heard of, at least heard (and maybe didn't know it). And I wanted 'em to be great records. I think these past the test. Roy Buchanan was amazing in his early days, he contributes some truly ominous guitar sounds to Dale Hawkins sides like Cross-Ties, early fuzz wackiness on Cody Brennan's version of Ruby Baby and even made a handful of great 45's under his own name. By the time his ship came in via a PBS documentary which portrayed him as the great, lonesome blues  man, he'd turned into a bore, but this platter, a rendition of Erkstine Hawkins' After Hours for the Philadelphia based Bomarc label illustrates just how cool he once was. Buchanan himself had long credited the Jimmy Nolen (guitarist with the Johnny Otis Show and James Brown, see the Dec. Johnny Otis I for more on him) waxing of After Hours (Federal, you can hear it on the Johnny Otis I posting) as his all time favorite and most influential disc. Here, Buchanan adds a few of his own tricks, including using the volume knob on his Telecaster as a primitive Wah Wah pedal (or as Hasil Adkins called it-- the Bow Wow pedal), and some almost tasteful use of feedback. Quine used to say Buchanan was the only guitarist whom he couldn't tell if he was black or white, on this disc he sounds grey with red pinstripes. J.J. Cale is somebody I used to file in the same part of my brain as Jimmy Buffet, but the aforementioned Quine re-introduced me to Cale's stuff and damned, if you really listen he's almost the white Jimmy Reed. Ask Eric Clapton, who stole Cale's sound, songs and band and durn near modled himself after the lazier than hell Okie trash genius (when told he had a hit record and should go out and tour to promote it Cale asked his manager "if I got a hit, why do I have to promote it"? Turns out Cale has a long history and appeared on quite a few  great rockabilly and hillbilly discs back in Oklahoma before setting out for L.A. where he recorded as the Leather Coated Minds for Sidewalk in 1968 before returning to Tulsa and laid back near stardom. This instrumental, Shock Hop he's billed as Johnny Cale, it is from '63 and could sit proudly next to such classics as the Frantics' Werewolf (see Halloween I posting) as instro-spook rock'n'roll at it's best.

Lafayette "The Thing" Thomas wielded the Stratocaster on many great Jimmy McCracklin records including The Walk. McCracklin found him playing in Jimmy Wilson's band where he can be heard on such monsters as Big Wheel Rollin' (Goldband) as well as a few great records under his own name for Peacock (Jumpin' In The Heart Of Town being the best). This VG- R&B instrumental with the snappy title of Cockroach Run saw life as the only issue on the Jumping label out of God knows where (the flip was a dumb break in record called The Trial credited to nobody). Thomas ended life working as a hose fitter. There's a lesson in all this but I don't know what it is. Great record, pops, clicks and all. Jody Williams- Lucky Lou (Argo). Jody Williams started out in Bo Diddley's band when they were called the Langley Ave. Jive Cats or something like that. He can be heard soloing on Bo's Who Do You Love. As a session man he's on dozens of incredible Chess/Checker/Argo discs including many by Howlin' Wolf. He only got his due recently, and as of a few years ago was still playing at top of his game. I have fond memories of the first Ponderosa Stomp (when it was still called the Mau-Mau Ball) at the Circle Bar in New Orleans when Jody played a killer set with blues steel player Freddy Roulette. On this Argo disc, his only solo record for the Chess brothers, he displays all his best tendencies. Great record, no bout a doubt it. Jimmy Dobro (James Burton)- Swamp Surfer (Phillips). This is of course James Burton, hero of countless fine rockabilly records by Dale Hawkins (Suzi Q), Bob Luman, Ricky Nelson, as well as sides by Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gram Parson and even John Denver. He's probably one of the most deservedly praised guitar players in history but his solo work (an LP for A&M in '72 and a duet LP with Ralph Mooney for Capitol in '66) are good but never quite click into high gear. This, my favorite of all his solo sides, was cut under the name Jimmy Dobro because the a-side is a corny dobro-novelty called Everybody Listen To The Dobro that really isn't worth posting. I love the vibe of this one, especially the way the rhythm section modulates south without breaking tempo. Swamp Surfer isn't so much a monster as a real sleeper, in the best sense of the term.